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Sweet Tomato Pickle

A pickled tomato dish sweetened with brown sugar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 tomatoes

  1. Soak the sliced tomatoes in salt overnight.

  2. Boil the tomatoes in 2 quarts of water and 1 quart of vinegar for 15 minutes.

  3. Discard the liquid.

Make the pickles

  1. In a pot, combine 2 quarts of vinegar, 2 pounds of brown sugar, mustard seed, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, and ginger.

  2. Add the tomatoes and boil until tender, about 15 to 20 minutes.

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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 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
Form the bulk of the pickle and soften into a tender, jammy texture as they cook.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharp acidity of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the pickle its sharp, preserving tang.
Sea salt
Draws water out of the sliced tomatoes during the overnight soak, firming them up.
White mustard seed
Adds a pungent, slightly bitter flavour that carries through the sweet-sour syrup.

The step that matters

Boil the tomatoes until tender. Boiling too briefly leaves the slices firm and raw-tasting, while overcooking breaks them down into mush. Watching for tenderness at the 15 to 20 minute mark helps keep their shape.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, mustard, allspice, clove, cinnamon, ginger. 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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