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Tomato Jelly

A preserve made from ripe tomatoes, sugar, ginger, mace, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the tomatoes and remove any rough spots.

Make the jelly

  1. For every pound of tomatoes, add half a pound of sugar.

  2. Season with white ginger and mace.

  3. Boil until it reaches a stiff jelly consistency.

  4. Add enough vinegar to preserve it.

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. Ginger + macetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,063 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the bulk and liquid that cooks down into the jelly body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the mixture set into a firm jelly while preserving it.
Vinegar
Adds acidity and helps preserve the jelly.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour.

The step that matters

Boil until a stiff jelly forms. Sugar and acid only set the jelly when enough water has boiled off and the sugar concentration is high. Stopping too early leaves a runny result, while boiling too long makes it tough and overly stiff.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Corianderfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, ginger, vinegar. 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.

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