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Tomato Mustard

A preserved tomato condiment made with salt, spices, vinegar, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the tomatoes

  1. Boil the tomatoes with salt and strain through a sieve.

  2. Return the strained mixture to the heat and boil down to half its volume.

Season and finish

  1. Add ground cloves, ginger, black pepper, and cayenne pepper.

  2. When cold, stir in vinegar and enough mustard to thicken.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce, and boiling down concentrates their flavor and body.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the reduced tomato.
Mustard
Thickens the sauce and adds a sharp, pungent bite.
Cayenne pepper
Adds lingering heat to the sauce.
Ground cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice notes.
Ginger
Adds a warm, pungent aroma and light heat.

The step that matters

Stir in the vinegar and mustard only when the mixture is cold. Vinegar's sharp acidity and mustard's pungency are volatile and fade with prolonged heat. Adding them after cooling preserves their bright flavor, and the mixture thickens as it cools.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, ginger, pepper, vinegar, mustard):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, ginger, pepper, vinegar, mustard. 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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