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Tomato Chowder

A preserved tomato and onion chowder made with green tomatoes, onions, salt, vinegar, spices, horseradish, sugar, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Salt and drain

  1. Layer the sliced green tomatoes and onions in a bowl, sprinkling salt over each layer.

  2. Let the mixture sit overnight.

  3. The next morning, strain off the liquid and discard it.

Cook

  1. Transfer the tomatoes and onions to a preserving pan.

  2. Cover with vinegar and add allspice, peppers, horseradish, sugar, and cloves.

  3. Boil until the tomatoes are tender.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + horseradishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Onion + horseradishtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 chowder and soften into the body of the dish as they cook.
Onions
Add savory flavor and body, softening during the salting and boiling.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the mixture.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness.
Horseradish
Contributes a sharp, pungent heat that gives the chowder its bite.

The step that matters

Salting and draining overnight. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes and onions through osmosis. Discarding that liquid concentrates the flavor and helps the vegetables hold their texture rather than turning watery in the pan.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, vinegar, allspice, pepper, horseradish, sugar, clove):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, allspice, pepper, horseradish, sugar, 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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