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Sliced Tomato Pickles

Pickled sliced green tomatoes preserved in vinegar and sugar with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Sliced Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Wash the green tomatoes.

  2. Cut off the ends of the green tomatoes.

  3. Slice the tomatoes.

  4. Sprinkle the sliced tomatoes with coarse sea salt.

  5. Let the tomatoes stand overnight.

  6. Drain the tomatoes.

  7. Cover the tomatoes with cold weak vinegar and let stand for 24 hours.

  8. Pour the tomatoes into a kettle.

  9. Boil the tomatoes for 10 minutes.

  10. Drain the tomatoes.

Make the syrup and pack

  1. Make a syrup with 1 quart of vinegar and 3 pints of brown sugar.

  2. Add the tomatoes to the hot syrup.

  3. Boil the mixture for 3 minutes.

  4. Pack the tomatoes in jars with spices.

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. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Tomato + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,063 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Tomato + sugartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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 and firm, tart flesh that becomes the pickle.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the sliced tomatoes, firming them and reducing moisture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp flavour.
Brown sugar
Balances the acidity with sweetness and helps form a thick syrup.

The step that matters

Drawing out the water before cooking. Salting and standing the sliced tomatoes draws out moisture; if they are drained poorly or rinsed incompletely, the syrup gets diluted and the pickle turns soft and watery.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar. 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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