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Sliced Tomato Pickle

A pickled relish made from sliced green tomatoes, onions, cabbage, spices, sugar, horseradish, peppers, and cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Sliced Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Slice the tomatoes and place them in a jar.

  2. Sprinkle a large handful of coarse sea salt over the tomatoes and let them stand overnight.

  3. Press all the water from the tomatoes.

Cook

  1. Mix all the ingredients together and place the mixture in a kettle.

  2. Add enough cider vinegar to cover the mixture.

  3. Boil until the tomatoes look clear.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Turmeric + cinnamontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,197 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

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 when boiled.
White mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that mellows during cooking.
Cider vinegar
Acidity that preserves the mixture and gives the pickle its tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard with sweetness.
Onions
Add savoury bulk and a mild sharpness that softens as it cooks.

The step that matters

Pressing the salted tomatoes. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes by osmosis. Pressing out that liquid before cooking keeps the pickle thick rather than watery and lets it absorb the vinegar and spices.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, cabbage, mustard, turmeric, celery, cinnamon, clove):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, cabbage, mustard, turmeric, celery, cinnamon, clove. 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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