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Sweet Tomato Pickles

Pickled tomatoes and onions sweetened with sugar and spices.

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 ↓

Sweet Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Sprinkle tomatoes and onions with salt and let sit overnight.

  2. Drain the mixture and cook in vinegar and water for 15 minutes.

  3. Drain again and pack into jars.

Make the syrup and fill jars

  1. Boil vinegar, brown sugar, allspice, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, mustard, and cayenne.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the pickles in jars.

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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 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 pickle and give it its firm, tart body.
Onions
Add savory flavor and moisture that blends into the pickle.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the tomatoes and onions, firming them and seasoning the pickle.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp tang.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Drain the salted mixture before cooking. Salt draws out a lot of water. If the mixture is not drained well, extra liquid dilutes the vinegar syrup, which can leave the pickles less tangy and less firm.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, sugar, allspice, cinnamon, ginger, 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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