Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Preserves

A sweet tomato preserve made by boiling tomatoes with molasses and optional ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tomato and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,887 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Pour hot molasses over the tomatoes and let stand for 12 hours.

Cook the syrup

  1. Boil the mixture until the tomatoes are properly cooked.

  2. Skim out the tomatoes and continue boiling the syrup until thick.

Finish and store

  1. Pour the thick syrup back over the tomatoes and store as preserves.

  2. For flavor, add a tablespoon of ginger tied in cloth, or use extracts or lemon peel.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Tomato + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Tomato + molassestop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together323 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the bulk and fruity body of the preserves as they soften and cook down.
Molasses
Acts as the sweetener and thick syrup that preserves the tomatoes and gives them dark color.

The step that matters

Continuing to boil the syrup until thick. Boiling drives off water and concentrates the sugars in the molasses. Stopping too early leaves a thin syrup that may not keep well as a preserve.

Swap the ginger

The recipe marks ginger as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, molasses):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Gingerthe original
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Cuminfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, molasses. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More tomato preserves recipes

Green 21Yellow 8Spiced 3 See all 76 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesMolasses SauceMolasses Sauce32 recipes