Why it works: Celery and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 3,375 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the vegetables
Slice the tomatoes and onions very thin.
Sprinkle a little salt through them and let them stand overnight.
Drain them through a colander.
Put them on to boil with enough vinegar to cover them and boil slowly until they are clear and tender.
Drain them from the vinegar.
Make the pickle
Put into some fresh vinegar the sugar, mustard seed, mace, celery seed, and cloves, and let them boil for a few minutes.
Pour that mixture over the drained tomatoes, which have been mixed with the cayenne pepper, ground mustard, and turmeric. Mix them well together.
Add a half bottle of salad oil.
When cold, put it in jars.
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.
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Celery + tomatotop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together3,375 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Mace + clovetop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together8,199 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Mustard + celerytop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together4,160 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Turmeric + celerytop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together1,356 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Turmeric + clovetop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together1,334 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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 when simmered in vinegar.
- Onions
- Add bulk and mild sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and depth that offsets the acidity of the vinegar.
- White mustard seed
- Provides a sharp, pungent flavour that mellows during simmering and storage.
- Salad oil
- Adds fat and a richer mouthfeel to the pickle.
The step that matters
Boiling the tomatoes and onions in vinegar. Boil slowly until clear and tender, then drain well. Simmering softens the vegetables and sets their texture, while excess liquid left behind would dilute the pickle and affect how it keeps.
Flavor stand-ins for the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, mustard, turmeric, sugar, celery, clove, tomato):
- Gingerbetter flavor fit
- Cuminbetter flavor fit
- Cardamombetter flavor fit
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against onion, mustard, turmeric, sugar, celery, clove, tomato. 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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