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Sweet Tomato Pickles

A pickled green tomato and onion relish sweetened with brown sugar and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sweet Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Salt and drain

  1. Slice the green tomatoes and onions.

  2. Sprinkle salt through the layers and let them stand overnight.

  3. Drain the tomatoes and onions, then rinse with cold water.

Cook and layer

  1. Cook the tomatoes and onions in clear vinegar until tender.

  2. Drain the tomatoes and onions.

  3. Layer them in stone jars, sprinkling each layer with whole allspice, cloves, and black pepper.

Add the syrup

  1. Boil 1 quart of vinegar with 2 pounds of brown sugar and ½ cup of ground mustard.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the pickles.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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 into a tender, sliceable texture when cooked.
Onions
Add savory bulk and a mild sweetness that mellows during cooking and standing.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the pickling liquid and adds a molasses depth that balances the vinegar's sharpness.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their tang.
Ground mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Salting overnight and draining well. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes and onions by osmosis. Draining and rinsing afterward removes excess salt and surface water, so the pickles stay crisp-tender and do not taste overly salty or dilute the syrup.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, sugar, mustard, allspice, clove, 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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