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French Pickles

Pickled green tomatoes and onions in a spiced vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

French Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the vegetables

  1. Sprinkle salt over sliced tomatoes and onions and let sit overnight.

  2. Drain thoroughly.

Boil and drain

  1. In the morning, boil tomatoes and onions in water and vinegar for 15-20 minutes.

  2. Drain again.

Make the spiced vinegar

  1. Combine 4 quarts vinegar, brown sugar, mustard seeds, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, ground mustard, and cayenne pepper in a pot.

  2. Cook the mixture for 15 minutes.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 absorb the brine and spices as they cook.
Onions
Add sweetness and body that softens during salting and boiling.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its tang.
White mustard seeds
Contribute pungent flavour that mellows as the spiced vinegar cooks.

The step that matters

Draining after salting. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes and onions by osmosis. Draining thoroughly removes that liquid, so the pickle stays firm and the brine is not diluted.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, sugar, mustard, clove, cinnamon, ginger. 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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