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Pickled Green Tomatoes

Pickled green tomatoes are preserved in a sweet and spiced vinegar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Pickled Green Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Slice the green tomatoes and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

  2. Let them stand overnight.

  3. Drain the tomatoes.

  4. Place them in fresh water.

  5. Change the water several times until most of the salt taste is gone.

  6. Scald the tomatoes until partially cooked.

  7. Drain again.

Make the syrup and cook

  1. Combine vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, and cloves in a pot to make a syrup.

  2. Bring the syrup to a boil.

  3. Add the tomatoes.

  4. Cook until tender.

  5. Carefully lift the tomatoes out.

  6. Boil the syrup longer to reduce it.

  7. After a day, heat the tomatoes again.

  8. Be careful not to overcook them.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Tomato + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,348 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 syrup as they cook.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and firms the tomatoes before they are rinsed of salt.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the tomatoes and gives the pickle its tang.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma to the syrup.
Cloves
Adds warm, pungent aroma to the syrup.

The step that matters

Be careful not to overcook them. Green tomatoes are firm and pectin-rich; overcooking breaks down their cell walls, so they turn mushy and lose their shape in the syrup.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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