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En Tomato Pickles

A pickled tomato dish with spices, peppers, onions, brown sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

En Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Slice tomatoes and place them in a jar.

  2. Sprinkle with a little coarse sea salt and let them stand for 24 hours.

  3. Drain off the liquid.

Cook

  1. In a kettle, combine the tomatoes with the spices, horseradish, peppers, onions, and brown sugar.

  2. Cover with vinegar and boil slowly for 3 hours.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the pickle and release liquid that the salt draws out during standing.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture from the tomatoes, firming their texture before cooking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses note that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tangy flavour.
Red peppers
Add body, mild sweetness, and colour to the pickle as they cook down.
Onions
Contribute savoury depth and soften into the pickle during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Drain off the liquid. The salted tomatoes release a lot of liquid. Removing it before cooking keeps the pickle thick rather than watery, and stops the vinegar from being diluted.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, ginger, allspice, clove, cinnamon, horseradish, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, ginger, allspice, clove, cinnamon, horseradish, pepper. 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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