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Sweet Pickled Tomatoes

A pickled tomato and onion relish sweetened with vinegar, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sweet Pickled Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Strew salt over sliced tomatoes and onions; let sit overnight.

  2. Drain in the morning.

Cook

  1. Boil water and 1 quart vinegar for 15-20 minutes.

  2. Drain boiled tomatoes and onions in a sieve.

  3. In a kettle, combine 4 quarts vinegar, mustard seed, sugar, allspice, cinnamon, ginger, mustard, cloves, and cayenne pepper.

  4. Cook slowly for about 30 minutes.

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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  4. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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, once salted and drained, give it a firm texture.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the tomatoes and onions, firming them before pickling.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Coffee sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and spices.
White mustard seed
Adds pungent flavour and a slight bite to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Drain after salting and before pickling. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes and onions; if they are not drained well, excess liquid dilutes the vinegar syrup and softens the pickle.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, mustard, coffee, sugar, allspice, 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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