Skip to main content
Main

Preserved Tohatoes

A preserved tomato preparation boiled with lemon and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Preserved Tohatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the tomatoes.

Cook

  1. Combine the tomatoes, lemon peel, lemon juice, sliced lemon, and the bag of ginger in a large pot.

  2. Place the pot on the side of the range and boil slowly for three hours.

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. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,887 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the main body of the preserve, supplying the fruit, moisture and bulk that slowly reduce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the tomato flavor and balances its sweetness.
Ginger
Contributes a warm, aromatic spice that infuses into the tomatoes during cooking.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for three hours. A gentle, slow boil lets water evaporate gradually and the tomatoes thicken evenly. A harder boil can scorch the bottom of the pot and break down the texture unevenly.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, ginger):

  1. Broccolifits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, ginger. 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 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes