Skip to main content
Main

Sweet Tomato Pickle

A pickled tomato and onion mixture flavored with salt, vinegar, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and allspice 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 ↓

Sweet Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sprinkle sliced tomatoes and onions with salt and let them stand overnight.

  2. In the morning, drain the mixture.

  3. Add water and vinegar to the tomatoes and boil for 15 minutes.

  4. Drain again and discard the liquid.

Cook and spice

  1. Add sugar, vinegar, cloves, allspice, ginger, mustard, cinnamon, and cayenne to the tomatoes.

  2. Boil the mixture for another 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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + mustardtop 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 soften into a tender, chunky texture when boiled.
Onions
Add savory flavor and body that blends into the pickle as it cooks.
Sugar
Balances the sharp vinegar and adds sweetness that defines the pickle's character.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tangy bite.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavor to the pickle.

The step that matters

Salting and draining the tomatoes and onions overnight. Salt draws water out of the vegetables through osmosis. Draining that liquid before cooking keeps the pickle from becoming watery and helps the pieces stay firmer through the boil.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, sugar, clove, allspice, ginger, mustard. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream Tomato SoupCream Tomato Soup28 recipes