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Dessert

Tomato Marmalade

A sweet and tangy preserve made from ripe tomatoes, sugar, vinegar, allspice, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove 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 Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Peel the tomatoes.

  2. Add the sugar and vinegar to the tomatoes and stew until it becomes a pulp.

  3. Stir in the whole allspice and cloves.

  4. Pack the mixture into 1 pint self-sealing jars.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Tomato + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together670 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

Ripe tomatoes
Form the bulk and body of the marmalade as they break down into a pulp.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as water evaporates, thickens the mixture into a spreadable set.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the sweetness.
Whole allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the finished marmalade.

The step that matters

Stew the tomatoes with the sugar and vinegar until pulped. Sugar draws water out of the tomatoes and, as the liquid evaporates, the mixture thickens. Stopping too early leaves it runny, while cooking too long can make it overly stiff and dark.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, allspice, clove. 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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