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Kipe Tomato Pickles

A pickled tomato preserve made with tomatoes, sugar, vinegar, salt, spices, and optional vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Home for the Friendless (Chicago, Ill.) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 17,913 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes and vegetables

  1. Boil seven pounds of ripe tomatoes with three pounds of sugar and one quart of vinegar for fifteen minutes. Skim off the tomatoes and boil the syrup a few minutes longer. Spice to taste with cloves and cinnamon.

  2. Slice one peck of green tomatoes thinly. Add one pint of salt, cover with cold water, and let stand for twenty-four hours.

  3. Chop one head of cabbage, six onions, and twelve green peppers very finely.

  4. Layer the tomatoes and peppers, sprinkle one cup of salt, and let remain overnight.

Make the pickle

  1. Cover the sliced green tomatoes with hot vinegar, drain through a sieve, and add one pint of molasses, one tablespoon of cloves, allspice, and two ounces of white mustard seed. Cover with cold vinegar.

  2. In the morning, press dry through a sieve, put the mixture in a porcelain kettle, and cover with vinegar. Add one cup of sugar and a tablespoon of each kind of spice.

  3. Put the mixture into a muslin bag and stew slowly for about an hour, or until the tomatoes are as soft as desired.

By Home for the Friendless (Chicago, Ill.). 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. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Tomato + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,913 recipes

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

  2. Clove + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together13,144 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Tomato + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together20,622 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,243 recipes

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

Vinegar and mustard share little aroma chemistry, yet 14,067 recipes mention both: they likely 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 into a tender texture during stewing.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the pickle while balancing the vinegar's sharpness.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the pickle.
Salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, firming them and reducing their moisture.
Onions
Add savoury depth and aroma as they cook down into the pickle.

The step that matters

Pressing the salted vegetables dry. Salt draws out water, and if the mixture is not pressed dry before adding vinegar and sugar, excess liquid dilutes the pickle and can leave it watery rather than thick and well-flavoured.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Cucumberbetter flavor fit
  3. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, vinegar, molasses, clove, mustard, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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