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Green Tomato Pickles

Pickled green tomatoes in a vinegar, water, sugar, mustard, cinnamon, cloves, and onion brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Landmarks Club · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

Green Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Salt sliced green tomatoes and leave overnight.

  2. In the morning, put tomatoes in a kettle with one quart vinegar and one pint water. Bring to a boil, then drain.

Make the pickle

  1. In a clean kettle, combine the tomatoes with one and a half pints vinegar, half pint water, one pint sugar, two tablespoonfuls mustard, one tablespoon cinnamon, one teaspoon cloves, and two large onions.

  2. Chop ten medium ripe tomatoes, three green peppers, and two small onions together.

  3. Heat one pint vinegar to boiling and add the chopped vegetables. Heat well.

  4. Bottle while hot.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

140Calories
3 gProtein
1 gFat
33 gCarbs

Counts 9 of 10 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 9 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Tomato1 medium (123g)22
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Mustard1 tsp (5g) yellow3
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Landmarks Club. 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. See the original page.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. 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; salting and boiling firm the slices and draw out excess water.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that gives the pickle its tang and helps keep it stable.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar.
Ripe tomatoes
Contribute moisture, body and a mellow sweetness to the chopped mixture.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma as they soften in the hot vinegar mixture.
Green peppers
Add a fresh, slightly bitter vegetal flavor and some texture to the pickle.

The step that matters

Heat well after adding the chopped vegetables. Vinegar keeps pickles safe mainly when it is hot enough through the whole mixture. Heating thoroughly before bottling helps the vegetables soften and the flavors blend evenly.

Swap the onion

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

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

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