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French Pickle

A pickled mixture of tomatoes and onions seasoned with vinegar, sugar, mustard, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

French Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Sprinkle 1 cup of coarse sea salt over the tomatoes and onions. Let them stand overnight.

  2. In the morning, drain the mixture and boil it in 1 quart of water and 4 quarts of vinegar until tender.

  3. Strain the mixture again through a colander.

Make the pickling liquid and finish

  1. Combine 1 gallon of vinegar, 2 pounds of brown sugar, 1 pound of white mustard seed, 2 tablespoons of grated allspice, 2 tablespoons of cloves, 2 tablespoons of cinnamon, 2 tablespoons of ginger, 2 tablespoons of mustard, and ½ teaspoon of cayenne pepper in a pot.

  2. Boil the mixture for 1 hour.

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. 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. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  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
Form the bulk of the pickle and soften into a tender, chunky texture when boiled.
Onions
Add savory bulk and sweetness that mellows during the long simmer.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp flavor.
Brown sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness and a deep, molasses-like flavor.
White mustard seed
Contributes a pungent, sharp flavor that mellows in the hot vinegar.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for 1 hour. Too short a boil leaves the vegetables firm and the spices raw-tasting, while the vinegar and sugar need sustained heat to meld into a stable, well-blended pickle.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, sugar, mustard, allspice, clove, 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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