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Pickled Tomatoes

A pickled tomato recipe with onions, peppers, and spices preserved in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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

Prepare the brine

  1. Prick the tomatoes with a needle.

  2. Place the tomatoes in enough cold brine to cover them, made by dissolving salt in cold water.

  3. Let the tomatoes stand in the brine for a week.

  4. Peel the onions carefully.

  5. Let the onions stand in the same brine for two days.

Pack the jars

  1. Drain the tomatoes and onions.

  2. Wipe the tomatoes and onions with a clean cloth.

  3. Place the tomatoes and onions in quart jars with the peppers.

  4. Fill one jar with cold vinegar to measure the quantity needed.

  5. Use four times that amount.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. Combine the vinegar, brown sugar, allspice, cloves, and cinnamon in a pot.

  2. Heat the mixture until scalding hot.

  3. Cool the mixture.

  4. Pour the cooled mixture into the jars, dividing the spices among them.

  5. Seal the jars.

  6. Store the jars 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. 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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Main vegetable, softened by brining and pickled in the sweet-sour liquid.
Salt
Brine that draws out moisture and firms the tomatoes and onions.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and gives the pickles their sharp flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Onions
Adds savory flavor and firm texture to the pickled mix.

The step that matters

Let the tomatoes stand in the brine for a week. Brining draws water out of the tomatoes and firms their flesh. Too short a soak leaves them soft after pickling, and the salt must fully penetrate for the pickle to keep well.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, vinegar, sugar, 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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