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Pickled Tomatoes

A pickled green tomato relish made with onions, sugar, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and slice the green tomatoes thinly.

  2. Weigh the tomatoes and prepare the other ingredients.

Make the pickle

  1. In a porcelain kettle, combine the vinegar and sugar; stir and bring to a boil.

  2. Remove from heat and let it stand for a few minutes to remove the scum.

  3. Add the sliced onions, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg to the vinegar mixture.

  4. Return to heat and add the tomatoes.

  5. When the mixture begins to simmer, gently press the tomatoes down.

  6. Boil for 2 to 3 minutes, then transfer to covered jars or wide-necked bottles once cool.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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
Form the bulk of the pickle and soften as they simmer in the syrup.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the pickle its tang and preserves the tomatoes.
Onions
Add savoury flavour and aroma to the sweet-sour liquid.

The step that matters

Removing the scum after boiling the vinegar and sugar. Foam that forms on the boiling syrup can carry impurities into the pickle. Letting it stand briefly lets the scum rise so it can be skimmed off, leaving a clearer liquid.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, cider, vinegar, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg. 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.

More pickled tomatoes recipes

Sweet 15French 10Spanish 10Spiced 4 See all 75 →

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