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Sweet Tomato Pickle

A pickled tomato relish with sweetened brine and spices.

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 ↓

Sweet Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice the tomatoes, peppers, and onions alternately with the salt into an agate kettle.

  2. Let it stand overnight.

  3. Drain off the brine thoroughly.

Cook the pickles

  1. Pour over enough vinegar to cover the vegetables.

  2. Add the sugar, cloves, allspice, cinnamon, ginger, mustard, and grated horseradish.

  3. Boil very slowly all day, stirring frequently to prevent burning.

  4. Add more sugar if not sweet enough.

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. Clove + allspicetop 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

Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the pickle and soften as they cook.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, firming them and drawing off brine.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that preserves and balances the sugar.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps thicken the syrup as it cooks down.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavor to the pickling liquid.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that complements the sweetness and acidity.

The step that matters

Boil very slowly all day, stirring frequently. Long, gentle simmering lets the syrup thicken and spices infuse, but the sugar-rich mixture scorches easily on the bottom of the pot. Frequent stirring prevents burning.

Swap the onion

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

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

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