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Chopped Pickles

A pickled relish made from chopped green tomatoes, onions, peppers, salt, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Chopped Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Salt

  1. Combine the chopped tomatoes, onions, and peppers in a large bowl.

  2. Sprinkle with salt and let stand overnight.

Cook

  1. Cover the mixture with vinegar.

  2. Cook slowly for 1 hour.

  3. Drain the mixture.

Season and finish

  1. Add sugar, cinnamon, and cloves.

  2. Cover with cold vinegar.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk and body of the pickle.
Onions
Add savory flavor and aroma as the mixture cooks.
Peppers
Add bulk, mild flavor, and some texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the pickle.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Salting overnight. Salt draws water out of the vegetables through osmosis. Letting the mixture stand overnight removes excess moisture before cooking, which helps the pickle stay firm rather than watery.

Swap the onion

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

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

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