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Pickled Tomatoes

A preserved tomato dish pickled in salt, vinegar, onions, mustard seed, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pickled Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Prick the tomatoes with a large needle and soak them in strong salt and water for 8 days.

  2. Remove the tomatoes from the brine and soak them in vinegar and water for 24 hours.

Prepare the onions

  1. Scald the onions in vinegar and let them cool.

Combine and pickle

  1. Drain the tomatoes and combine them with the cold onions and vinegar, mustard seed, and cloves.

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

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

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,482 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

Ripe tomatoes
Form the main body of the pickle, absorbing the brine and vinegar flavour as they soak.
Salt
Draws moisture out of the tomatoes and seasons them during the long brine soak.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the tomatoes and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth that balances the sharp vinegar.
Mustard seed
Adds a pungent, slightly bitter aroma and crunch to the pickle.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice that flavours the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Soaking the tomatoes in strong brine for 8 days. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes through osmosis, firming their flesh and limiting spoilage. If the brine is too weak or the soak is cut short, the tomatoes can soften or spoil before the vinegar stage.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, vinegar, onion, mustard):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, onion, 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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