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Pickled Tomatoes

Pickled tomatoes are preserved with salt, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Pickled Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the tomatoes, onions, and peppers.

  2. Sprinkle the salt over the chopped vegetables and let them stand overnight.

  3. The next day, drain off the water.

Pickle

  1. Add the horseradish and spices to the vegetables.

  2. Cover with vinegar and scald thoroughly.

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. Horseradish + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the pickle and give its body once cooked.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, firming them and helping them stay crisp.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Horseradish
Adds pungent heat that mellows during pickling.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften in the brine.

The step that matters

Drain off the water after salting overnight. Salt draws liquid out of the vegetables, and that liquid must be fully drained. Leaving it in dilutes the vinegar and weakens the pickle's acidity and texture.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, horseradish, cinnamon, clove, allspice, vinegar. 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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