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Green Tomato or Cucumber Pickles

Pickled green tomatoes or cucumbers with onions, spices, vinegar, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Green Tomato or Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the green tomatoes or cucumbers and the onions.

  2. Sprinkle each layer with coarse sea salt.

  3. Let the mixture sit for 24 hours.

  4. Drain the mixture through a sieve.

Cook

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

  2. Cover with strong vinegar.

  3. Simmer until clear.

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

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 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 or cucumbers
Form the bulk of the pickle and soften as they cure and simmer.
Onions
Add sweetness and body, softening and blending into the pickle as it cooks.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables during the resting period, firming their texture.
Strong vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp flavour.

The step that matters

Simmer until clear. Simmering too briefly leaves the vegetables firm and cloudy; cooking gently until they turn translucent softens their structure and lets the flavours meld.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, mustard, 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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