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Sweet Tomato Pickles

A pickle of sweet green tomatoes preserved in vinegar, sugar syrup, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Sweet Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Peel the sweet green tomatoes.

  2. Soak the tomatoes in weak brine for 1-2 days.

  3. Wash and steam the tomatoes until done, or boil them in vinegar.

Make the syrup and pickle

  1. Make a syrup similar to that for pickled peaches.

  2. Treat the tomatoes in the syrup and add 2-3 cloves to each tomato.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  4. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Smooth green tomatoes
Form the body of the pickle, staying firm enough to hold their shape.
Weak brine
Draws some moisture out of the tomatoes and seasons them before pickling.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the tomatoes and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Cloves
Add a warm, spicy aroma that flavours the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Soaking in weak brine. Soaking for 1-2 days firms the tomato flesh and draws out water, so the pickle stays crisp rather than turning soft and watery in the syrup.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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