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Green Tomato Pickles

Pickled green tomatoes with onions and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sprinkle sliced green tomatoes with coarse sea salt and let them stand overnight.

  2. Slice the onions and add them to the tomatoes.

  3. In a large pot, combine the tomatoes, onions, and enough vinegar to cover them.

Cook

  1. Add the spices: white mustard seed, ground mustard, turmeric, cloves, allspice, ginger, black pepper, cinnamon, salt, and brown sugar.

  2. Boil the mixture for two hours, stirring occasionally.

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. Turmeric + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the pickle and firm texture that holds up during long simmering.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth that mellows as the pickle cooks.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp tang.
Brown sugar
Balances the acidity of the vinegar with sweetness and adds caramel notes.
White mustard seed
Contributes pungent, sharp flavor that becomes milder as it cooks in the vinegar.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for two hours, stirring occasionally. Long simmering softens the tomatoes and onions and lets the spices infuse the vinegar. Stirring keeps the solids from sticking and scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, mustard, turmeric, clove, allspice, ginger, 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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