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Pickled Tomatoes

Pickled tomatoes soaked in saltwater, then vinegar, with 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

Brine and soak

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

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

Pickle with onions

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

  2. Drain the tomatoes and combine them with the cold onions, 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

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the pickle, becoming firm and salty as they absorb the brine.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that gives the pickle its tang and helps preserve it.
Onions
Contribute mild savoury sweetness and a crisp texture to the finished pickle.
Mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent flavour and a slight crunch to the pickling liquid.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice that flavours the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Pricking the tomatoes before brining. Piercing the skins lets the strong salt solution reach the flesh inside, so the tomatoes cure evenly rather than only at the surface.

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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