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Sweet Pickle

A sweet pickle made by boiling green tomatoes with sugar, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the green tomatoes finely.

  2. In a large pot, combine the chopped tomatoes and brown sugar.

Cook

  1. Boil the mixture for three hours, stirring occasionally.

  2. Add the vinegar, mace, cinnamon, and cloves, and boil for an additional fifteen minutes.

Cool and jar

  1. Let the mixture cool, then transfer it into jars or another vessel.

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. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Tomato + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,348 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 its firm, tart pieces.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and gradually thickens the mixture as it cooks down.
Vinegar
Adds the sharp acidity that balances the sugar.
Mace
Adds warm, aromatic flavour.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma.
Cloves
Adds strong, warm aroma.

The step that matters

Stirring during the three-hour boil. Sugar-rich mixtures thicken and darken as water evaporates, and the sugar can scorch on the base of the pot. Stirring occasionally keeps the bottom from burning and spreads the heat evenly.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, mace, 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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