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Salad

Green Tomato Pickle

A pickle made from green tomatoes, onions, and peppers, preserved in a vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the vegetables

  1. Mix green tomatoes and sliced onions with salt.

  2. Let sit overnight.

  3. In the morning, pour off the liquid and discard it.

Cook and store

  1. Mix 2 quarts of water with 1 quart of vinegar and boil for 20 minutes.

  2. Drain and discard the liquid.

  3. Combine 3 quarts of vinegar with chopped green peppers and boil for 1 to 2 hours.

  4. Store in an airtight container.

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

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

  2. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 absorb the brine's flavour during salting.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma that mellow during the long simmer in vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp, tangy flavour.
Green peppers
Add crisp texture and a fresh, slightly bitter vegetal flavour.

The step that matters

Salting overnight and draining. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes and onions by osmosis, firming their texture and removing excess liquid. Pouring off and discarding that liquid keeps the final pickle from being watery and diluted.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, 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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