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Spiced Tomatos

A sweet and spicy tomato preserve made with sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, and cloves.

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

Spiced Tomatos

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Peel and chop the tomatoes.

  2. In a large pot, combine the tomatoes and sugar.

  3. Boil for 1½ hours, stirring occasionally.

  4. Add the cider vinegar, ground cinnamon, and whole cloves.

  5. Boil for another 1½ hours, stirring constantly.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Tomato + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,348 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 of the dish and release juice that cooks down into a thick, spreadable mass.
Brown or white sugar
Adds sweetness and thickens the cooking liquid as it reduces, helping the mixture set.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Ground cinnamon
Contributes warm, sweet aroma to the tomatoes.
Whole cloves
Contribute a strong, pungent aroma that infuses the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Stirring constantly during the second boil. As the sugar concentrates and the mixture thickens, it can scorch on the bottom of the pot. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly and keeps the sugars from burning, which would give a bitter flavor.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cider, vinegar, cinnamon, 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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