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Tomato Chowder

A preserved tomato chowder with onions, green peppers, salt, vinegar, sugar, spices, horseradish, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Tomato Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the tomatoes, onions, and green peppers finely.

  2. Sprinkle with 1 pint of coarse sea salt and let stand overnight.

  3. Pour off the brine and cover with good vinegar.

Cook and pack

  1. Cook slowly for 1 hour, then drain and pack into a jar.

  2. Mix sugar, spices, horseradish, and mustard with vinegar.

  3. Heat until boiling and pour over the other ingredients.

  4. Store in a cool place, covered tightly.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 chowder and provide its tart, fresh base.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma as they soften during slow cooking.
Green peppers
Contribute vegetal flavor and body to the chopped mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the vinegar's sharpness and preserves the mixture.
Good vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the chowder.
Grated horseradish
Adds pungent heat that mellows during cooking and storage.

The step that matters

Heat until boiling and pour over the other ingredients. Bringing the sugar, spices, mustard, and vinegar mixture fully to a boil dissolves the sugar and blends the seasonings evenly, and the hot liquid helps the mixture keep when stored.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, allspice, 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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