Skip to main content
Main

Preserved Green Tomatoes

This recipe preserves green tomatoes in a sugar and lemon solution.

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

Why it works: Lemon and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,592 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Preserved Green Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grate the rind of the lemon and set aside.

  2. Pare off the thick part of the lemon and discard.

  3. Slice the lemon thinly and remove all seeds.

  4. Scald and peel the green tomatoes.

Make the syrup

  1. In a pot, combine enough water with the sugar to dissolve it.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil, skimming off any scum.

Cook

  1. Add the tomatoes and cook slowly for two hours.

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. Lemon + tomatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + tomatotop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the preserve, becoming tender and absorbing the sugar syrup as they cook.
Light brown sugar
Dissolves into the water to form a syrup that sweetens and preserves the tomatoes.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aroma from the sliced fruit and grated rind.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for two hours. Gentle heat lets the tomatoes soften and absorb the syrup evenly. A hard boil can break the tomato pieces apart and scorch the sugar, leaving a ragged, darkened preserve.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, sugar):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Kalefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes