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French Tomato Pickle

A pickled tomato dish made with tomatoes, onions, salt, 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

  1. Sprinkle salt over sliced tomatoes and onions; let sit overnight.

  2. Drain well and scald in weak vinegar for 10-15 minutes.

Cook and pickle

  1. Drain again and scald with strong vinegar, sugar, curry powder, turmeric, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and mustard.

  2. Simmer all ingredients together slowly for a few minutes.

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 as they cook in the spiced vinegar.
Onions
Add savoury body and mild sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness.
Curry powder
Contributes the main spice aroma and warm flavour.

The step that matters

Simmer all ingredients together slowly for a few minutes. Simmering gently lets the sugar dissolve and the spices release their flavour into the vinegar without the tomatoes breaking down into mush.

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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