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Green Tomato Pickle

A pickled green tomato and onion relish seasoned with salt, vinegar, spices, and sugar.

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 Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the green tomatoes and onions, then layer them in a bowl.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and let stand overnight.

  3. Drain the mixture well.

Cook

  1. Place it in a kettle and cover with vinegar.

  2. Add mixed spice, brown sugar, mustard seed, celery seed, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Boil for half an hour.

  4. Remove from heat.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 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 vinegar and sugar flavours as they cook.
Onions
Add savoury depth and body that holds up to long simmering.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture from the tomatoes and onions overnight, firming the pieces.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp tang.
Brown sugar
Balances the acidity with sweetness and helps form a thick, syrupy liquid.
Mustard seed
Adds a pungent, slightly bitter aroma that develops during the boil.

The step that matters

Drain the mixture well. Salting draws out a lot of water overnight. If the pieces are not drained thoroughly, the extra liquid dilutes the vinegar and sugar during boiling, leading to a watery, less stable pickle.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, sugar, mustard, celery, 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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