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Green Tomato Pickles

Pickled green tomatoes with onions, peppers, mustard seed, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, and brown sugar in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Chicago. Bethany union church. Woman's society. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice one-half peck green tomatoes, one-half peck onions, and six green peppers into layers, sprinkling one cup salt between each layer. Let stand overnight.

  2. Next day rinse thoroughly in several waters.

Cook and store

  1. When well rinsed add two pounds brown sugar, three quarts vinegar (or enough to cover mixture), one-fourth pound mustard seed, two tablespoons whole cloves, one-third cup broken ginger root, one-half cup stick cinnamon broken.

  2. Boil all together about fifteen minutes or until clear.

  3. Put in a two-gallon stone jar.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

142Calories
3 gProtein
1 gFat
33 gCarbs

Counts 10 of 11 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 10 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
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Seednot 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 Chicago. Bethany union church. Woman's society. [from old catalog]. 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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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, becoming tender and absorbing the sweet-sour syrup during cooking.
Onions
Add savory body and sweetness that soften into the pickle during boiling.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp tang.
Mustard seed
Contributes a pungent, slightly bitter flavor that deepens during boiling.

The step that matters

Rinsing after the salt rest. Salt draws large amounts of water out of the vegetables, and rinsing thoroughly removes the surface salt. If rinsing is skipped or rushed, the pickle will be overly salty and the excess salt will carry into the finished jar.

Swap the onion

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

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

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