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Sweet Green Tomato Pickle

A pickled green tomato relish with vinegar, molasses, mustard seed, cloves, allspice, peppers, and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Keokuk (Iowa). Westminster Presbyterian church · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Sweet Green Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Slice one gallon of green tomatoes.

  2. Sprinkle a handful of salt over them and let stand twelve hours.

  3. Drain off the water.

  4. Add two green peppers and two to four sliced onions to the tomatoes.

Make the pickle

  1. Take two quarts of good cider vinegar, a little more than half a pint of molasses, two tablespoonfuls of white mustard seed, one teaspoonful of cloves, and the same amount of allspice.

  2. Heat the mixture until it boils.

  3. Add the tomatoes, onions, and peppers to the boiling mixture.

  4. Boil for ten minutes.

Store

  1. Pour into a stone jar and let stand two weeks before using.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

143Calories
3 gProtein
1 gFat
33 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 10 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Molasses1 tbsp (20g)58
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Tomato1 medium (123g)22
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
White Mustard1 tsp (5g) yellow3
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Cidernot in our table0
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 Keokuk (Iowa). Westminster Presbyterian church. 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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  3. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  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 and soften as they absorb the spiced vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp flavour.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to balance the sharp vinegar.
White mustard seed
Contributes a pungent, sharp aroma and flavour to the pickle.
Onions
Add savoury body and flavour that blends into the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Salting and draining the tomatoes. Salt draws water out of the green tomatoes through osmosis. Draining that liquid before adding the vinegar keeps the pickle firmer and stops it from being diluted.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cider, vinegar, mustard, clove, molasses, 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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