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Tomato Mustard

A preserved tomato condiment thickened with mustard flour and spiced with cloves, allspice, pepper, ginger, cayenne, garlic, onion, and curry powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. In a preserving pan, combine tomatoes and salt; boil for 30 minutes.

  2. Pulp the mixture through a colander and return it to the kettle.

Season and reduce

  1. Add cloves, allspice, black pepper, ginger, cayenne, garlic, onion, and curry powder.

  2. Boil down the mixture until it reduces significantly.

Thicken and bottle

  1. Strain through a sieve and add mustard flour until the desired thickness is reached.

  2. Simmer for a short time, then bottle for use.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 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

Tomatoes
Form the main body of the sauce and provide moisture and acidity as they cook down.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the tomatoes, helping them soften and concentrate during boiling.
Flour of mustard
Thickens the sauce as it is added, giving it body and a sharp mustard flavour.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and sweetness that mellows as it cooks down with the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Boil down the mixture until it reduces significantly. Reduction concentrates the sugars, acids and spices and drives off water, so the sauce thickens and keeps well. Stopping early leaves it thin and more prone to spoiling.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, allspice, pepper, ginger, garlic, onion, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Eggplantfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, allspice, pepper, ginger, garlic, onion, flour. 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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