Name: Sweet Tomato Pickles with Raisins
Ingredients: 1 peck green tomatoes; 1 small cup coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); 1 pound raisins, stoned; 1¾ pounds brown sugar; 1 ounce whole cloves; 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon; 1 teaspoon ground allspice; 2 ounces white mustard seeds; Vinegar, to cover tomatoes

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 Pickles with Raisins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Slice the tomatoes and sprinkle the salt over them.
Let them stand overnight.

Cook and bottle

Drain the tomatoes and add the raisins, brown sugar, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and mustard seeds tied in a muslin bag.
Cover the tomatoes with vinegar and boil until tender.
Bottle the pickles while hot.

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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,928 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 pickle, softening into tender pieces during boiling.
Coarse sea salt: Draws moisture out of the tomatoes overnight, firming them and concentrating flavor.
Raisins: Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the pickle.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and depth, balancing the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar: Provides acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tang.
Mustard seeds: Contribute sharp, pungent flavor when simmered in the spiced mixture.

Swap the tomato

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

Horseradishfits better
Shallotfits better
Arrowrootfits better
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, clove, cinnamon, allspice, mustard, vinegar. 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.