Why it works: Tomato and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,667 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Toscato Figs
Ingredients
Directions
Make the tomato candy
Scald and slice the tomatoes.
In a pot, cook the tomatoes with brown sugar over medium heat without adding water until the sugar penetrates and the tomatoes are clarified.
Remove the tomatoes and spread them on dishes, flattening them.
Dry the tomatoes in the sun, sprinkling a little syrup on them while drying.
Pack and store
Pack the dried tomatoes in boxes, treating each layer with powdered sugar.
Boil down any remaining syrup and bottle it for later use.
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.
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Tomato + sugartop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,667 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Small tomatoes
- Provide the bulk of the fruit, which softens and releases juice that cooks down into the syrup.
- Brown sugar
- Draws moisture out of the tomatoes and forms a thick syrup, adding sweetness and preserving the fruit.
The step that matters
Cooking the tomatoes with sugar without water. Sugar draws juice out of the tomatoes, so they must be cooked gently over medium heat until the sugar penetrates. Heat that is too high can scorch the sugar before the tomatoes are clarified and the syrup thickens.
“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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