Name: Sweet Pickles Tomato and Fig Pickles
Ingredients: 1 peck green tomatoes; 1 lb figs; 1 lb seeded raisins; 1 cup vinegar; 4 cups sugar; 20 cloves; a few sticks of cinnamon (tied in cheesecloth)

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Sweet Pickles Tomato and Fig Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Slice and salt the green tomatoes in layers, then place them in a granite boiler overnight.
Drain the brine and rinse the tomatoes in cold water.
Chop the figs and add them to the tomatoes.

Cook

Cover with vinegar and boil for 20 minutes.
Add the raisins, vinegar, sugar, cloves, and cinnamon bag, then cook slowly for 30 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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Fig + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together614 recipes

Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).
Fig + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together404 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Fig + raisintop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together737 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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 absorb the salt and sugar as they cook.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps preserve the pickle while thickening the syrup.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the pickles.
Figs: Add sweetness and soft texture as they break down into the pickle.
Seeded raisins: Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture to the pickle.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for 30 minutes after adding the raisins, vinegar, sugar, cloves, and cinnamon. Cooking gently lets the sugar dissolve and the fruit soften and meld with the spices without scorching on the bottom of the pan, which would give a burnt taste.

Swap the tomato

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

Sweet potatofits better
Beetrootfits better
Capsicumfits better
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fig, raisin, vinegar, sugar, clove, 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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Sweet Pickles Tomato and Fig Pickles