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Preserve

Tomato Cheese

A preserved tomato cheese made with tomatoes, lemon juice, sugar, brandy, cinnamon, and red food coloring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Tomato Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Wipe the tomatoes dry with a clean cloth.

  2. Remove the seeds and cut the tomatoes into thin slices.

  3. Rub the slices through a sieve to make a puree.

Make the cheese

  1. Weigh the puree and add the strained juice of 2 lemons.

  2. Add 1½ pounds of lump sugar, 1 tablespoon of brandy, and a pinch of ground cinnamon.

  3. Color the mixture with a few drops of red food coloring.

  4. Seal the mixture and keep it in a cool, dry place.

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 + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  5. Brandy + cinnamontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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
Provide the main body and flavor of the cheese once pureed.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sugar.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the mixture and thickens it into a spreadable texture as it cooks down.
Brandy
Adds aromatic depth to the flavor.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, brandy, 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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