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French Pickle

A pickled tomato and onion relish seasoned with mustard, cloves, allspice, cinnamon, turmeric, black pepper, celery seed, and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

French Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice the tomatoes and onions, sprinkle with salt, and let them stand overnight.

  2. Drain through a colander and place in a porcelain kettle.

  3. Cover with equal parts vinegar and water, and boil slowly for 1 hour.

  4. Drain again through a colander for 30 minutes.

Make the spiced vinegar

  1. Combine 1½ gallons of vinegar and 3 pounds of brown sugar in a pot, boil and skim for 15 minutes.

  2. Mix turmeric, spices, and mustard with a little cold water to form a paste, then stir into the boiling vinegar.

  3. Simmer for 5 minutes.

Pack the jars

  1. Layer the tomatoes in stone jars and add a cup of the mixture until filled.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  4. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 spiced vinegar as they soak.
White onions
Add savoury depth and a mild sharpness that softens during the long cooking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and body that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and sharpens the flavour.
Ground cloves
Contribute warm aroma and pungency to the spiced vinegar.

The step that matters

Drain the salted vegetables before cooking. Salting draws out water, and draining removes the salty liquid so the pickle is not overly salty. Rinsing or draining thoroughly controls both salt level and texture.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, sugar, cider, vinegar, mustard, 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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