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Pickled Tomatoes

Pickled tomatoes seasoned with mace, cloves, cinnamon, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Pickled Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prick the skins of the tomatoes.

  2. Layer the tomatoes in a container.

  3. Sprinkle pounded mace, cloves, and cinnamon on each layer.

  4. Pour cold vinegar over the entire mixture.

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. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Tomato + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,348 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body of the pickle, which softens and absorbs the spiced vinegar as it sits.
Cold vinegar
Acidifies the tomatoes and carries the spices through them, preserving the pickle and giving it its sharp flavor.
Pounded mace
Adds warm, aromatic flavor that infuses the tomatoes.
Cloves
Contribute a strong, sweet-spicy aroma that penetrates the tomatoes.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma that rounds out the spice blend.

The step that matters

Pouring the cold vinegar over the layers. The vinegar must fully cover the tomatoes so the whole mixture stays acidic. Any exposed fruit can spoil, and the spices only spread evenly once the liquid reaches every layer.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mace, clove, cinnamon, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mace, clove, cinnamon, 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.

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