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Green Tomato Pickles

Pickled green tomatoes with onions and spices, preserved in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove 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 Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the green tomatoes and onions.

  2. Layer tomatoes in a jar, followed by onions, a sprinkling of coarse sea salt, and repeat until all are used.

  3. Let the mixture stand aside overnight.

  4. The next morning, drain off all the liquid.

Cook and store

  1. Place the mixture in a porcelain kettle, add the spices, cover with vinegar, and simmer gently for 15 minutes.

  2. Store in stone or glass 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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Mustard + oniontop 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 soften as they simmer in the vinegar.
Onions
Add sweetness and body that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tang.
Whole allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic flavour to the pickling liquid.
Whole cloves
Contributes warm, aromatic flavour to the pickling liquid.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour and a slight crunch to the pickle.

The step that matters

Draining after the overnight salting. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes and onions overnight. Draining off that liquid before cooking keeps the pickle from being watery and lets the vinegar and spices take hold.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, allspice, mustard, onion, 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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