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Tomato Pickles

A pickled tomato and onion relish made with vinegar, salt, sugar, spices, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the tomatoes and onions, sprinkle salt over them, and let stand overnight.

  2. Drain the mixture.

Cook

  1. Place the drained mixture in a porcelain kettle with water and vinegar.

  2. Boil the mixture for fifteen minutes.

  3. Drain again.

  4. Cover with vinegar and add the remaining ingredients.

  5. Boil for an additional fifteen 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 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. Cinnamon + allspicetop 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 give it its main texture.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they soften during boiling.
Salt
Draws moisture out of the tomatoes and onions overnight, firming them.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Overnight salting and draining. Salting draws out water so the tomatoes and onions stay firm rather than turning soft and watery. Draining off that liquid before boiling keeps the final pickle thick and concentrated instead of diluted.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

More pickled tomatoes recipes

Sweet 15French 10Spanish 10Spiced 4 See all 75 →

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