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Tomato Sweet Pickle

A sweet pickle made from green tomatoes, sugar, vinegar, spices, and lime water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Sweet Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Dissolve 1 quart of slaked lime in 2 gallons of water.

  2. Place 7 pounds of green sliced tomatoes in a large jar and cover with the lime water.

  3. Let the tomatoes stand for 24 hours.

Make the syrup and finish

  1. In a pot, combine 4½ pounds of sugar, 2 quarts of vinegar, 2 ounces of stick cinnamon, 1 tablespoon of whole cloves, and 1 tablespoon of allspice. Boil together.

  2. Remove the tomatoes from the lime water, rinse lightly, and pour the boiling mixture over them.

  3. Let the tomatoes stand for another 24 hours, then boil for 30 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. Lime + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together147 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Lime + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Green sliced tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the pickle; their firm flesh holds its shape through the long soak and boil.
Slaked lime
Firms the tomato flesh by strengthening its cell walls so it resists softening during cooking.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and, with the vinegar, preserves the pickle and balances its sharpness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the pickle.
Stick cinnamon
Contributes warm, sweet aroma to the syrup that soaks into the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Rinsing the tomatoes after the lime soak. Light rinsing removes excess lime so it does not carry into the syrup and taste harsh or alkaline, while enough lime remains to keep the tomatoes firm.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lime, sugar, vinegar, 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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