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Tomato Chowder

A preserved tomato chowder made with green tomatoes, onions, peppers, salt, vinegar, sugar, spices, horseradish, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Tomato Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine chopped tomatoes, onions, and green peppers in a bowl.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and let stand overnight.

  3. Pour off the brine and cover the mixture with good vinegar.

  4. Cook slowly for 1 hour, then drain and pack into a jar.

Make the pickling liquid and finish

  1. In a separate pot, mix sugar, spices, horseradish, and mustard with vinegar.

  2. Heat the mixture until boiling hot and pour over the packed ingredients.

  3. Store in a cool place, covered tightly.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 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

Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the chowder and absorb the vinegar and sugar flavours.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the vegetables, which helps them keep their texture and firm up.
Sugar
Balances the sharp vinegar and adds sweetness to the pickling liquid.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its tang.
Ground mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that complements the sweet and acidic elements.
Horseradish
Contributes a pungent heat that mellows during cooking and storage.

The step that matters

Pouring off the brine before adding vinegar. Salt drawn out overnight must be fully drained, otherwise the pickle turns overly salty and the vinegar is diluted, affecting both taste and preservation.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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