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Pickles Rainin

A pickled tomato relish sweetened with sugar and raisins, flavored with lemon and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,592 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Pickles Rainin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak tomatoes in salt water overnight.

  2. Rinse in alum water.

Cook and finish

  1. Cook tomatoes thoroughly.

  2. Add raisins and sliced lemon.

  3. Mix well and let cool.

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. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  5. Tomato + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,063 recipes

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

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 give it its main texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickle its tangy flavor.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.

The step that matters

Cook tomatoes thoroughly. Cooking until the tomatoes are fully tender lets the sugar and vinegar penetrate the flesh and helps the mixture thicken as it cools. Undercooked tomatoes stay firm and can leave the pickle watery.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, raisin, lemon. 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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