Name: Green Tomato Pickle
Ingredients: 3 lemons; 12 large onions; 5 lbs

Why it works: Lemon and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,646 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

3 lemons
12 large onions
5 lbs

Directions

Prepare

Slice 1 pack of green tomatoes, sprinkle salt over them, let them stand 24 hours, and drain them from the liquor.
Prepare the following ingredients: slice 3 lemons, slice 12 large onions, take ½ lb of ground mustard, ¼ lb ground mustard seed, 1 oz ground cloves, 1 oz ground ginger, 1 oz ground allspice, 1 oz black pepper pounded fine, 1 oz coriander seed, 1 oz celery seed, and 5 lbs brown sugar.

Cook and finish

Put alternate layers of onion, tomatoes and spices in your kettle, cover all with strong vinegar, and boil 1 hour and a quarter.
When cold, add a teacup of sweet oil, then pot and tie closely.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

56Calories

2 gProtein

0 gFat

14 gCarbs

What these numbers assume: 2 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12

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

By Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.). Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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.

Lemon + oniontop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,646 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes (in the method): Form the bulk of the pickle and soften once salted and simmered in vinegar.
Onions: Add sweetness and body as they soften into the layered pickle.
Brown sugar (in the method): Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Strong vinegar (in the method): Acts as the preserving liquid and provides the pickle's sharp acidity.

“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.