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Ripe Tomato Pickle

A pickle made from ripe tomatoes, salt, mustard, cloves, peppers, onions, and sugar, preserved in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Ripe Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Pierce the tomatoes with a silver fork or broom straw.

  2. Layer the tomatoes and salt in a stone jar alternately.

  3. After one week, discard the liquid that forms.

Brine and drain

  1. Cover the tomatoes with cold water.

  2. Let stand for 24 hours.

  3. Drain thoroughly.

  4. Discard the water.

Pickle

  1. Return the tomatoes to the jar.

  2. Cover with cold vinegar.

  3. Add sliced onions, green peppers, mustard, cloves, and brown sugar.

  4. Let the mixture stand for three weeks before using.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Form the bulk of the pickle and absorb the brine and vinegar flavors.
Fine cooking salt
Draws liquid out of the tomatoes, firming them and helping preserve the pickle.
Cold vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the pickle.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Ground mustard
Adds a sharp, pungent flavor to the pickle.

The step that matters

Draining after the 24-hour cold water soak. Tomatoes must be drained thoroughly and the soaking water discarded, because leftover liquid dilutes the vinegar and can weaken the pickle's flavor and preservation.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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