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French Pickle

A pickled green tomato and onion relish seasoned with salt, vinegar, sugar, mustard, spices, and celery seed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

French Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the green tomatoes and onions.

  2. Sprinkle salt over them and let stand overnight.

  3. In the morning, drain well.

Cook and store

  1. Cook in 2 quarts of water and 1 quart of vinegar for 15 minutes.

  2. Drain again and add 2 quarts of vinegar, brown sugar, mustard, cinnamon, clove, white pepper, celery seed, and white mustard seed.

  3. Cook gently for 15 minutes.

  4. Store in a stone jar.

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.

  1. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 give it a firm, tangy texture once salted and cooked.
Onions
Add savory flavor and moisture that blends into the pickling liquid.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the tomatoes and onions, firming them and reducing their moisture.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp flavor.
Brown sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness and depth.
White mustard seed
Adds a pungent, slightly bitter bite that carries through the cooked pickle.

The step that matters

Draining after the overnight salting. Salt pulls water out of the tomatoes and onions by osmosis. Draining well removes that liquid so the pickle stays firm and the vinegar mixture is not diluted.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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