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Tomato Chowder

A preserved tomato chowder made with green tomatoes, onions, peppers, salt, vinegar, sugar, spices, and horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Tomato Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, onions, and green peppers finely.

  2. Sprinkle the chopped mixture with 1 pint of coarse sea salt and let it stand overnight.

  3. Pour off the brine and cover the mixture with good vinegar.

  4. Cook slowly for 1 hour, then drain and pack into a jar.

Make the spiced vinegar and store

  1. Mix the sugar, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, black pepper, horseradish, and ground mustard with vinegar.

  2. Heat the mixture until boiling hot and pour it over the packed ingredients.

  3. Store in a cool place, covered tightly.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 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

Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the chowder and supply its tart, fresh-vegetable body.
Sea salt
Draws moisture out of the chopped vegetables, firming them and preserving the mixture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the chowder its sharp flavor and helps preserve it.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness.
Horseradish
Contributes a pungent, sharp heat that stands out in the spiced vinegar.
Onions
Add savory depth and aromatic flavor to the vegetable base.

The step that matters

Draining off the brine before adding vinegar. Salt draws large amounts of water out of the vegetables overnight. Pouring off that brine removes excess liquid and salt, so the finished chowder is not overly salty or watery.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, allspice, clove. 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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