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Sweet Piccalilli

A sweet pickle made from green tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, salt, and cinnamon bark.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Sweet Piccalilli

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the desired quantity of green tomatoes and place them in a colander to drain overnight.

  2. In the morning, cover the tomatoes with vinegar and sweeten to taste.

  3. Add a little coarse sea salt and a piece of cinnamon bark tied in a cloth.

Cook

  1. Cook until the tomatoes are 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. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Tomato + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,063 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Vinegar + cinnamontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,187 recipes

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

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
Form the bulk of the dish and soften into a tender, translucent texture when cooked.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the piccalilli its sharp, tangy flavour and helps preserve it.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Cinnamon bark
Infuses warm, aromatic spice into the tomatoes and vinegar while they cook.

The step that matters

Cook until the tomatoes are clear. Cooking until the tomatoes turn clear means they have softened fully and absorbed the vinegar and sugar. Stopping early leaves them firm and raw-tasting, while overcooking breaks them down into a mush.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, cinnamon. 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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