Name: Sweet Tomato Pickles
Ingredients: eight pounds of ripe tomatoes; four pounds of sugar; half ounce of cloves; half ounce of allspice; half ounce of cinna- mon; half pint of vinegar; vinegar

Why it works: Clove and allspice 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 ↓

Sweet Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

Peel the tomatoes.
Boil for one and a half hours.

Finish and store

When partly cold, add a half pint of vinegar.
Put away in jars.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

86Calories

1 gProtein

1 gFat

20 gCarbs

What these numbers assume: 5 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Tomato	1 medium (123g)	22
Clove	1 tsp ground (2g)	7
Allspice	1 tsp ground (1.9g)	5
Vinegar	1 tbsp (15ml) distilled	3

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Des Moines. Plymouth church. [from old catalog]. 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,474 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Tomato + allspicetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together670 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Allspice + vinegartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,548 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 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

Tomatoes: Forms the body of the pickle and softens into a thick, spoonable mass as it boils.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and thickens the liquid into a syrup as it cooks down.
Vinegar: Adds sharp acidity that balances the sugar and helps keep the pickle stable.
Cloves: Contributes warm, pungent aroma to the pickle.
Allspice: Contributes warm, mildly peppery aroma to the pickle.
Cinnamon (in the method): Contributes sweet, woody aroma to the pickle.

The step that matters

Adding the vinegar when partly cold. Acetic acid is volatile and its sharpness fades with prolonged heat. Adding the vinegar once the mixture has partly cooled keeps more of its tang in the finished pickle.

Swap the tomato

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

Mustardfits better
Capsicumfits better
Horseradishfits better
Tomatothe original

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

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Sweet Tomato Pickles