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French Pickles

A pickled mixture of green tomatoes and onions seasoned with salt, vinegar, sugar, cloves, cinnamon, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

French Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Sprinkle salt over sliced tomatoes and onions; let stand overnight.

  2. In the morning, drain the tomatoes and onions.

Cook and pickle

  1. Boil the drained tomatoes and onions in 2 parts water and 1 part vinegar for 15 minutes. Drain again.

  2. Boil vinegar, sugar, cloves, cinnamon, and allspice together for 15 minutes. Pour the hot mixture over the pickles.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the pickle and soften as they cook in the brine.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory body that mellows during the long cooking.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the tomatoes and onions, firming them before the boil.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp flavour.
Sugar
Balances the vinegar's sharpness and adds sweetness to the syrup.

The step that matters

Draining after the salt rest. Salt draws out a lot of liquid overnight. Draining well and rinsing off excess salt keeps the vegetables crisp-tender and the pickle from tasting harsh or watery.

Swap the onion

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

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

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