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Green Tomato Pickle

A pickled green tomato dish seasoned with spices, vinegar, and sweet oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

Green Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the green tomatoes.

  2. Sprinkle salt over them.

  3. Let them stand for 24 hours.

  4. Drain the liquid.

Cook

  1. In a kettle, layer the onions, tomatoes, and spices alternately.

  2. Cover the layers with strong vinegar.

  3. Boil for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Finish and seal

  1. When cold, add the sweet oil and mix well.

  2. Seal the mixture tightly in jars.

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. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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; salting first firms them and draws out excess water.
Onions
Add sweetness and body as they soften during the long boil.
Strong vinegar
Provides acidity that helps preserve the pickle and sharpens the flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Sweet oil
Adds fat and a smoother, richer mouthfeel once the mixture has cooled.
Lemons
Add bright citrus acidity and aroma to the pickle.

The step that matters

Salting and draining the tomatoes for 24 hours. Salt draws water out of the sliced tomatoes by osmosis. Removing that liquid before cooking keeps the tomatoes firmer and stops the pickle from becoming watery and diluted.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, lemon, mustard, clove, ginger, allspice, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, lemon, mustard, clove, ginger, allspice, pepper. 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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