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Green Tomato Pickles

Pickled green tomatoes, peppers, onions, and spices in hot vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, green peppers, and white onions finely.

  2. Mix with 2 cups of coarse sea salt and let stand overnight.

  3. The next day, drain the mixture thoroughly.

Pickle

  1. Add ½ pint each of white and black mustard seed, some celery seed, and 4 tablespoons of ground cloves.

  2. Pour enough hot vinegar over the mixture to cover.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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 supply the firm, tart base that holds up to brining.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, firming them and concentrating flavor before pickling.
Hot vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp, tangy taste.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp flavor that deepens as the seeds soak in the vinegar.

The step that matters

Drain the salted mixture thoroughly. Salt draws large amounts of liquid from the chopped vegetables. If excess brine stays behind, it dilutes the hot vinegar and leaves the pickle watery and less crisp.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, mustard, celery, clove, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, mustard, celery, clove, vinegar. 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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