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French Tomato Pickle

A pickled green tomato and onion relish seasoned with vinegar, sugar, and spices.

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 ↓

French Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice the green tomatoes and onions.

  2. Sprinkle salt over the vegetables and let them sit overnight.

  3. Drain the vegetables well.

  4. Scald the vegetables in weak vinegar for 10-15 minutes.

  5. Drain the vegetables again.

Make the pickle

  1. In a pot, combine strong vinegar, sugar, curry powder, turmeric, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and mustard.

  2. Simmer the mixture slowly for a few minutes.

  3. Add the drained vegetables to the pot and mix well.

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. Turmeric + cinnamontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,197 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Turmeric + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 soften into a tender, chunky texture when cooked.
Onions
Add savour and body, softening as they cook in the vinegar.
Strong vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness.
Curry powder
Supplies the warm, spiced flavour that defines the pickle.
Turmeric
Adds a golden colour and earthy, slightly bitter note.

The step that matters

Drain the vegetables well after salting and after scalding. Salt draws water out of the vegetables, and any water left behind dilutes the spiced vinegar and weakens the pickle's sharpness and keeping quality.

Swap the onion

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

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

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