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Green-tomato Pickle

A pickled green tomato, onion, and pepper mixture preserved in a seasoned vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, onions, and green peppers finely.

  2. Place them in an enameled pan, sprinkle with salt, and let stand overnight.

  3. In the morning, drain off the brine from the vegetables.

Make and cook the pickle

  1. In a separate pot, combine vinegar, black pepper, mustard seed, celery seed, cloves, allspice, cinnamon, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil, then add the vegetables.

  3. Cook for 20 minutes after the pickle begins to boil.

Jar

  1. Fill jars with the hot pickle and seal immediately.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the pickle and provide its tart, firm body.
Onions
Add savoury depth and aroma as the vegetables cook in the vinegar.
Green peppers
Add crisp texture and a fresh, slightly bitter vegetal note.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and sharpens its flavour.
Mustard seed
Contributes pungent, sharp aroma that spices the vinegar brine.

The step that matters

Drain the brine before cooking. Salt draws water out of the vegetables overnight. Draining off that brine keeps the pickle from becoming overly salty, and the vegetables are then cooked in the spiced vinegar rather than the brine.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, vinegar, mustard, celery, clove, allspice. 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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