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Tomato Butter

A sweet and spicy tomato butter made with tomatoes, vinegar, brown sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Tomato Butter

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, combine the tomatoes and vinegar.

  2. Cook over medium heat until the mixture thickens to a jam-like consistency.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix the brown sugar with the salt, cayenne pepper, ground cloves, allspice, and cinnamon.

  4. Add the spice mixture to the thickening tomatoes and vinegar.

  5. Stir well and continue cooking until fully combined and thickened.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Break down into the bulk of the thick, spreadable body of the butter.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps balance the sweetness.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and deep flavor, and helps the butter thicken as it cooks.
Ground cloves
Contributes warm, aromatic spice notes that give depth to the flavor.

The step that matters

Stir well and continue cooking until fully combined and thickened. Tomatoes and sugar scorch easily on the bottom of a pot as the mixture thickens. Frequent stirring keeps the spices evenly distributed and prevents burning, while cooking off excess water gives the butter its spreadable texture.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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