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Ripe Tomato Pickles

A pickled tomato recipe using spices, peppers, brown sugar, horseradish, grape leaves, and cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Ripe Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Select smooth, solid, ripe tomatoes.

  2. Soak them in 1 gallon of water with 1 pint of coarse salt for 2 to 3 days.

  3. Remove the tomatoes and drain them.

Pack the jar

  1. Pack the tomatoes closely in a stone jar.

  2. Layer in the spices, peppers, and brown sugar as you fill the jar.

  3. Place horseradish on top.

  4. Pour in enough cold cider vinegar to cover the tomatoes.

  5. Add a thick layer of grape leaves on top.

  6. Place a plate to keep them submerged in the vinegar.

Seal and store

  1. Seal the jar with a thick brown paper.

  2. Store it in a cool place.

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. Allspice + horseradishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the main body of the pickle, becoming firm and tender as they cure in brine.
Coarse salt
Draws water out of the tomatoes and seasons them during the soak.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the tomatoes and gives the pickle its tang.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and sweet spice flavour to the pickling liquid.
Cloves
Contribute strong aromatic spice flavour to the pickle.

The step that matters

Keep the tomatoes submerged in the vinegar. Any tomato left above the liquid is exposed to air and can spoil or mould. A weighted plate holds the pieces under the vinegar, where the acidity protects them during storage.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, clove, allspice, sugar, pepper, horseradish, cider. 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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