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Sweet Tomato Pickle

A pickled tomato and onion relish sweetened with vinegar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Sweet Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Strew the salt over the sliced tomatoes and onions, and let them sit overnight.

  2. In the morning, drain off the liquid.

  3. Drain the tomatoes and onions in a sieve.

Make the pickle

  1. Boil the water and 1 quart of vinegar for 15-20 minutes.

  2. In a kettle, combine 4 quarts of vinegar, brown sugar, mustard seed, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Cook the mixture slowly for 15 minutes.

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
Form the bulk of the pickle and, after salting, release liquid and keep a firm texture.
Onions
Add savory bulk and aroma, softening as the pickle cooks.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and body, balancing the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp flavor.
Mustard seed
Contributes a pungent, slightly bitter flavor to the spiced syrup.

The step that matters

Drain the salted vegetables well. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes and onions. If they are not drained thoroughly, excess liquid dilutes the vinegar and sugar syrup, weakening both flavor and preservation.

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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