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To Pickle Tomatos

A method for preserving tomatoes by brining them in vinegar, salt, spices, and optional aromatics.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

To Pickle Tomatos

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the tomatoes

  1. Prick each tomato with a fork to allow juice to exude.

  2. Place them in a deep earthen vessel, sprinkling salt between each layer.

  3. Cover and let them sit for 3 days.

Pickle

  1. Wash off the salt and cover the tomatoes with cold vinegar.

  2. Add the juice, mustard seed, cloves, and white pepper.

  3. For added flavor, layer with thinly sliced onions and chopped celery if desired.

  4. Let the mixture sit for about two weeks before using.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Small round tomatoes
Form the main body of the pickle and release juice that mixes into the brine.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the tomatoes and helps firm their flesh while salting.
Cold vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the tomatoes and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent aroma and flavor to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Wash off the salt before adding vinegar. Salt drawn out in the first stage is still on the tomatoes. Rinsing it off before the vinegar goes in keeps the pickle from becoming overly salty, while the vinegar still sets the acidity.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, vinegar, mustard, clove, white pepper, celery):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, mustard, clove, white pepper, celery. 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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