Skip to main content
Main

Green Tomato Sweet Pickle

A sweet pickle made from green tomatoes, sugar, spices, and vinegar, preserved in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Green Tomato Sweet Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Slice the tomatoes and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

  2. Let the tomatoes stand for 24 hours.

  3. Soak the salted tomatoes in fresh water for another 24 hours to remove the brine.

Make the pickle

  1. Drain the tomatoes and combine them with sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and enough vinegar to cover.

  2. Boil the mixture and pour it over the tomatoes.

  3. Let the mixture stand for 24 hours.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil again.

  5. Transfer the mixture to jars and store in a cool, dark place.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 and absorb the sugar and spiced vinegar syrup.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps draw moisture out of the tomatoes, firming their texture in the syrup.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the tomatoes and gives the pickle its tang.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the tomatoes during the initial salting, firming them and reducing excess moisture.

The step that matters

Soaking the salted tomatoes. Soaking removes surplus salt from the tomatoes. If rinsing is cut short, the pickle can taste harsh and overly salty, and the salt can interfere with the sugar and vinegar balance.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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

You might also like

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