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Spiced Tomatoes

A pickled tomato relish made with vinegar, brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Spiced Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, combine vinegar, brown sugar, cinnamon stick, whole cloves, and allspice.

  2. Scald the mixture over medium heat until the sugar dissolves.

  3. Slice the tomatoes and add them to the vinegar mixture.

  4. Let the tomatoes soak in the spiced vinegar until used.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cinnamon + tomatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,348 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle's flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Tomatoes
Supply the main body of the pickle, absorbing the spiced vinegar as they soak.
Cinnamon stick
Contributes warm aromatic flavor to the spiced vinegar.
Whole cloves
Contribute strong, warm aromatic flavor to the spiced vinegar.
Allspice
Adds warm, peppery aromatic flavor to the spiced vinegar.

The step that matters

Scald the mixture until the sugar dissolves. Heating the vinegar and sugar fully dissolves the sugar so the brine is evenly sweetened and the spices can release their flavor into the liquid before the tomatoes are added.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, clove, allspice. 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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