Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Pickles

A pickled tomato and onion relish preserved with salt, allspice, ginger, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Allspice and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sprinkle the sliced tomatoes and onions with salt and let them stand for 24 hours.

  2. Drain the mixture, then add ground allspice and ginger.

Cook and bottle

  1. Place the mixture in a preserving kettle with sugar and enough vinegar to cover.

  2. Simmer until the tomatoes look transparent.

  3. Bottle the pickles and seal the bottles 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. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Onion + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,595 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,887 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together670 recipes

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

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 tender pieces during simmering.
Sea salt
Draws moisture out of the tomatoes and onions, firming them before pickling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and flavours the pickle.
Onions
Add savour and a little sharpness that mellows during simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer until the tomatoes look transparent. Simmering must be long enough to soften and clarify the tomato flesh, but not so long that it breaks down into mush. Watching for a translucent look signals that the sugar has penetrated and the texture is set for bottling.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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

More pickled tomatoes recipes

Sweet 15French 10Spanish 10Spiced 4 See all 75 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream Tomato SoupCream Tomato Soup28 recipes