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French Pickles

Pickled tomatoes and onions in a vinegar and spice brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

French Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine sliced tomatoes and onions in a bowl, sprinkle with salt, and let stand for 24 hours.

  2. Drain the vegetables and boil them in water and vinegar for 20 minutes.

Make the pickles

  1. Drain again and combine with 4 quarts of vinegar, brown sugar, mustard seed, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, mustard, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Boil the mixture for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the tomatoes look 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. Clove + cinnamontop 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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 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 soften into a tender, sliceable texture during cooking.
Onions
Add savory flavor and body, softening into the pickle as it cooks.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharp acidity of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp, tangy character.
White mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, pungent flavor and a slight crunch to the pickle.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the tomatoes look clear.. Cooking long enough softens the vegetables and lets the vinegar and spices penetrate, while stopping too early leaves the pickle raw-tasting and firm. Overcooking can make the tomatoes mushy and dull the spice flavors.

Swap the onion

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

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

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