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Sweet Pickle

A pickled green tomato relish flavored with onions, salt, vinegar, sugar, pimento, cinnamon, cloves, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Sweet Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the vegetables

  1. Layer sliced green tomatoes and onions in a large bowl, sprinkling 1 cup fine salt over them. Cover and let stand overnight.

  2. Drain the mixture and boil it in 2 quarts water and 1 quart vinegar for 20 minutes. Drain again.

Make the spiced vinegar and pickle

  1. In a pot, combine 2 quarts vinegar, 2 pounds brown sugar, 2 tablespoons each of pimento, cinnamon, cloves, and 1 tablespoon cayenne in a spice bag. Boil for 30 minutes.

  2. Add the drained tomatoes to the boiling vinegar mixture and let sit for a few minutes.

  3. Transfer the mixture to an earthen jar for storage.

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. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Tomato + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,348 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 soften slightly while absorbing the spiced vinegar.
Fine salt
Draws moisture out of the tomatoes and onions, firming them for pickling.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar.
Onions
Add savory flavour and bulk to the pickled mixture.

The step that matters

Draining after salting. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes and onions; draining thoroughly and boiling them in fresh water and vinegar removes excess salt, so the pickle is not overly salty and the vegetables stay firm rather than watery.

Swap the onion

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

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

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