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Sweet Tomato Pickle

A pickled tomato dish flavored with cloves, allspice, ginger, mustard, cinnamon, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the green tomatoes and onions.

  2. Mix the chopped tomatoes and onions with salt.

  3. Let the mixture stand overnight.

  4. Drain the mixture.

Cook and pickle

  1. Cover the drained mixture with 2 quarts of water and 1 quart of vinegar.

  2. Boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Drain again.

  4. In a pot, combine 2 quarts of vinegar, cloves, allspice, ginger, mustard, cinnamon, and cayenne pepper.

  5. Add the pickles to the pot.

  6. Boil for another 15 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Clove + gingertop 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 moisture and savory sweetness that soften during simmering.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and sharpens its flavor.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, firming them and reducing their moisture before pickling.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavor to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Draining after the overnight salt rest. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes and onions; draining thoroughly removes that liquid so the pickle stays firm and the vinegar brine is not diluted.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, clove, allspice, ginger, mustard, cinnamon. 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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