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French Pickles

Pickled tomatoes and onions in a vinegar and spice brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Mix sliced tomatoes and onions with salt; let stand overnight.

  2. Drain thoroughly.

Cook the vegetables

  1. Boil in vinegar and water for 15-20 minutes.

  2. Drain again.

Make the spiced vinegar and finish

  1. In a pot, combine 4 quarts of vinegar, brown sugar, mustard seed, allspice, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and ground mustard; boil for 15 minutes.

  2. Pour the mixture into a jar; it is ready for use once cooled.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the pickle and absorb the brine and spiced vinegar flavour.
Onions
Add savoury depth and a little sharpness that mellows during cooking.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp taste.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
White mustard seed
Contributes a pungent, slightly bitter flavour and crunch to the spiced vinegar.

The step that matters

Draining after salting and after boiling. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes and onions; draining thoroughly removes that liquid so the pickle stays crisp and the vinegar brine is not diluted.

Swap the onion

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

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

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