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Sweet Vegetable Pickles

A pickled mixture of tomatoes, onions, and green peppers sweetened with sugar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Sweet Vegetable Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Peel the onions and wash and dry the tomatoes.

  2. Slice the tomatoes thinly and chop the green peppers into small pieces.

  3. In a large pan, layer the tomato slices and sprinkle with salt.

  4. Let the mixture stand for 24 hours, then drain off the liquid, pressing down the cover.

Cook and pot

  1. In a preserving kettle, combine the drained vegetables with enough vinegar to cover.

  2. Add brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and mustard seed to the kettle.

  3. Boil the mixture for 15 minutes, then transfer to pots or jars.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Cinnamon + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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
Provide the bulk of the pickle and firm texture when sliced and salted.
Salt
Draws out moisture from the tomatoes, firming them and reducing liquid before pickling.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and sharpens the flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent aroma and flavor to the pickle.

The step that matters

Draining after the 24-hour salting. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes; draining and pressing off the liquid removes it so the pickle does not turn watery and the vinegar flavor is not diluted.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, sugar, cinnamon, clove, mustard, 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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