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Swekt Tomato Pickles

A pickled tomato preserve sweetened with sugar and spiced with cinnamon and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Swekt Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and prepare the tomatoes.

Cook and seal

  1. In a large pot, combine the tomatoes, sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, and cloves.

  2. Cook over medium heat until the mixture thickens.

  3. Pour into sterilized jars and seal.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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

Tomatoes
Provide the main bulk and fresh fruit flavour that the syrup coats and thickens around.
Sugar
Sweetens the pickle and, as it dissolves, helps thicken the mixture as it cooks down.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickle its sharp tang and helps preserve it.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet spice aroma that defines the pickle's flavour.
Cloves
Adds pungent, warm spice aroma that balances the sweetness and acidity.

The step that matters

Cook until the mixture thickens. Cooking over medium heat drives off water and concentrates the sugar and vinegar. Stopping too early leaves a thin, runny pickle that may not keep well in the jars.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, 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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