Skip to main content
Main

Tomata or Love-apple with Tamarind

A sweet and sour relish made from tomatoes or love apples, tamarind, ginger, chillies, raisins, garlic, sugar, salt, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tamarind and ginger work together. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 325 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Tomata or Love-apple with Tamarind

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the tamarind with the vinegar and bring to a boil, then strain.

  2. Prepare the tomato pulp, raisins, garlic, and pounded ginger.

Combine and store

  1. Combine all ingredients well and store in small bottles in a cool place.

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. Tamarind + gingertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together325 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Ginger + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Tomato + tamarindtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together137 recipes

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

  5. Tamarind + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together395 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

Tamarind
Provides the main sour, fruity flavour that defines the relish.
Tomatoes
Adds bulk, moisture and a mild acidity to the relish.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sourness of tamarind and vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the flavour and helps keep the relish stable.
Raisins
Add sweetness and a soft, chewy texture.
Dry ginger
Adds warm, pungent aroma and a gentle spice note.

The step that matters

Boiling and straining the tamarind. Boiling softens the tamarind pulp so it can be strained free of fibres and seeds, keeping the relish smooth rather than stringy.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

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

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream Tomato SoupCream Tomato Soup28 recipes