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Preserves — Tomato Preserves

A preserve made by cooking tomatoes with molasses, optionally flavored with ginger and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon 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 ↓

Preserves — Tomato Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Soak

  1. Pour hot molasses over the tomatoes and let stand for 12 hours.

Cook and store

  1. Boil the mixture until the tomatoes are properly cooked.

  2. Skim out the tomatoes and continue boiling the syrup until thick.

  3. Pour the thick syrup back over the tomatoes and store as preserves.

  4. For flavor, add ginger tied in cloth, lemon peel, or extracts if desired.

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. Ginger + lemontop 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).

  4. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Form the body of the preserves and supply their fresh, fruity flavor.
Molasses
Sweetens and darkens the preserves, adding a deep, rich flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the syrup thicken as water evaporates during boiling.

The step that matters

Boiling the syrup until thick. As water evaporates, the sugar concentration rises and the syrup thickens and sets. Stopping too early leaves the preserves runny, while boiling too long can scorch the molasses and make it bitter.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, ginger, lemon, sugar):

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, ginger, lemon, sugar. 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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