Name: Green Tomato Soi
Ingredients: 1 peck green tomatoes, sliced with skins on; 1 quart sugar; 2 quarts vinegar; 2 tablespoons salt; 2 tablespoons pepper; 2 tablespoons mustard; 1 tablespoon cloves; 1 tablespoon allspice

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 Soi

Ingredients

Directions

Combine all ingredients in a large pot.
Cook over medium heat until the tomatoes are tender.

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.

Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,928 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 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: Form the bulk of the pickle and provide its firm, tart body.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar: Supplies acidity that gives the pickle its sour flavour and helps preserve it.
Cloves: Contribute a warm, pungent aroma to the pickling liquid.
Allspice: Adds warm, aromatic spice notes that deepen the flavour.

Flavor stand-ins for the mustard

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

Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Mustardthe original
Cucumberabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, vinegar, pepper, clove, allspice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.