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Tomato Pickles

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

  1. Peel and slice the green tomatoes.

  2. Place them in a large pan or crock and sprinkle with enough coarse sea salt to remove the flat taste.

  3. Pour boiling water over the tomatoes until they are fully covered.

  4. Keep the tomatoes hot for a while, but do not cook them.

  5. The next day, drain the tomatoes and press them between a cloth to remove excess moisture.

  6. Layer the tomatoes in a stone jar.

  7. Prepare spice bags with allspice, cinnamon, and a little clove.

  8. Heat enough vinegar to cover the tomatoes, adding stick cinnamon and brown sugar to taste.

  9. Add some red pepper to the vinegar mixture.

  10. Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the tomatoes and place a plate on top to keep them submerged.

  11. Add horseradish or white mustard seed to preserve the 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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 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

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, cinnamon, clove, vinegar, sugar, pepper, horseradish. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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