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French Tomato Pickle

A pickled tomato and onion relish seasoned with salt, vinegar, sugar, curry powder, turmeric, cinnamon, cloves, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

French Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sprinkle salt over the tomatoes and onions, and let them stand overnight.

  2. Drain well and scald in weak vinegar for 10 to 15 minutes.

Cook

  1. Drain again and scald with strong vinegar, sugar, curry powder, turmeric, cinnamon, cloves, and mustard.

  2. Simmer all together slowly for a few 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Turmeric + cinnamontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,197 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Turmeric + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Turmeric + clovetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,876 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the pickle and absorb the vinegar and spice flavors as they cook.
Onions
Add savory bite and body that softens during salting and simmering.
Sugar
Balances the sharp vinegar with sweetness and helps form a thick, glossy relish.
Strong vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tangy character.
Curry powder
Contributes warm, earthy aroma and flavor that defines the pickle's seasoning.

The step that matters

Simmer all together slowly. Simmering gently lets the vinegar, sugar and spices blend while the tomatoes soften without breaking down into mush. Too fast a boil can scorch the sugar and spices and make the pickle bitter.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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