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Dessert

Ripe Tomato Pickle

A sweet pickle made from ripe tomatoes, sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, cloves, and orange peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Ripe Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Weigh the tomatoes before peeling.

Cook

  1. In a large pot, combine the tomatoes, brown sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, cloves, and orange peel.

  2. Boil for several hours until the mixture is dark and thick.

  3. Add more orange peel if the flavor is not strong 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Clove + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Tomato + orangetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together689 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the pickle and break down into a thick, jammy body.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the mixture darken and thicken as it cooks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the pickles.
Powdered cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and spice flavor to the sweet tomato mixture.
Powdered cloves
Adds strong spiced aroma and a warm, pungent flavor.
Grated orange peel
Adds bright citrus aroma and flavor that lifts the spices.

The step that matters

Boil until dark and thick. Long simmering evaporates water and concentrates sugars, which darkens the mixture and thickens it. Stopping early leaves the pickle thin and pale.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, clove, orange. 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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