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Sweet Green Tomato Pickle

Pickled green tomatoes with peppers, onions, and spices in a sweet vinegar mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove 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. Sprinkle salt over the sliced green tomatoes and let them stand for 12 hours.

  2. Drain off the water, then add the sliced green peppers and onions to the tomatoes.

Cook and store

  1. In a pot, heat the cider vinegar, molasses, mustard seed, cloves, and allspice until it boils.

  2. Add the tomatoes, onions, and peppers to the boiling mixture and boil for 10 minutes.

  3. Pour the mixture into a stone jar and let it stand for 2 weeks before using.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Onion + mustardtop 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
Provide the bulk of the pickle and, after salting, a firm texture that holds up to boiling.
Cider vinegar
Supplies the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it a sharp tang.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
White mustard seed
Contributes a mild, pungent spice flavour to the brine.
Onions
Add savoury flavour and sweetness as they soften in the hot brine.

The step that matters

Salting and draining the tomatoes. Salt draws water out of the sliced tomatoes by osmosis. Draining that liquid before cooking keeps the brine from being watered down and helps the pieces stay firmer rather than turning mushy.

Swap the onion

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

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

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