Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Soy

A pickled tomato sauce made with green tomatoes, onions, vinegar, sugar, mustard, cloves, allspice, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Tomato Soy

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Chop the green tomatoes and onions finely.

Cook

  1. In a large pot, combine the chopped tomatoes, onions, vinegar, brown sugar, mustard, cloves, allspice, salt, and black pepper.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Jar

  1. Pour the hot mixture into sterilized jars and seal 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.

  1. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  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
Provide the bulk of the sauce and its tart, fresh-fruit body as they break down during simmering.
Onions
Add savory depth and body, softening as they simmer into the sauce.
Vinegar
Supplies acidity that gives the sauce its tang and helps preserve it.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Mustard
Contributes sharp, pungent flavor that deepens the sauce's savoriness.

The step that matters

Simmer until thickened and seal hot. Simmering for the full hour lets the tomatoes and onions break down and the liquid reduce, while sealing the jars while hot helps create a vacuum seal. Stopping early can leave the sauce thin and less stable in storage.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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