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Pickled Tomatoes

A pickled green tomato dish flavored with onions, sugar, vinegar, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the green tomatoes.

  2. Slice the tomatoes thinly.

  3. Weigh the tomatoes and set aside.

Make the pickle

  1. Combine the vinegar and sugar in a porcelain kettle and stir the mixture.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil, then remove the kettle from heat and let it stand for a few minutes to remove the scum.

  3. Add the onions, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg to the vinegar mixture.

  4. Return the kettle to heat and add the tomatoes.

  5. When the vinegar begins to simmer, gently press the tomatoes down.

  6. Boil for 2 to 3 minutes.

Jar

  1. Transfer the pickles to covered jars or wide-necked bottles when cool.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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 absorb the spiced vinegar syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the pickle and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Onions
Add savory flavour and body to the pickle.

The step that matters

Removing the scum before adding the tomatoes. Letting the hot vinegar and sugar stand after boiling allows foam and impurities to rise so they can be skimmed off. Skipping this leaves scum in the finished pickle and can cloud its appearance and flavour.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

More pickled tomatoes recipes

Sweet 15French 10Spanish 10Spiced 4 See all 75 →

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