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Chopped Tomato Pickles

A pickled tomato relish made with tomatoes, onions, salt, vinegar, sugar, spices, and green peppers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chopped Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Combine chopped tomatoes, onions, and salt in a large bowl and let stand overnight.

  2. Drain the mixture well.

  3. Boil the drained mixture in 2 quarts of vinegar for 20 minutes.

  4. If the vinegar is sharp, add 1 pint of water.

  5. Drain again.

Cook the pickles

  1. In a large pot, combine 3 quarts of vinegar, sugar, mustard seed, allspice, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, and green peppers.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Add the tomatoes.

  4. Boil for 15 minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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 pickle and soften into the chunky texture as they cook.
Onions
Add savory flavour and body that blends into the pickle.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the tomatoes and onions so they drain and firm up.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness.
Mustard seed
Adds a pungent, sharp flavour that stands out in the spiced vinegar.

The step that matters

Drain the salted mixture well. Salt draws out water overnight, and any leftover liquid dilutes the vinegar and makes the pickle watery. Thorough draining keeps the vinegar strong and the texture firm.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, vinegar, sugar, mustard, allspice, clove, ginger):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, sugar, mustard, allspice, clove, 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.

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