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Green Tomato Pickle

A pickled green tomato and onion mixture flavored with mustard, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice the tomatoes and onions, sprinkle with coarse sea salt, and let stand overnight.

  2. In the morning, rinse with cold water to remove salt and squeeze dry.

  3. Cover with vinegar and boil until tender, then drain.

Make the pickle

  1. In a pot, combine fresh vinegar, brown sugar, white mustard seed, celery seed, and powdered cloves; boil for 5 minutes.

  2. Add cayenne pepper, Coleman's mustard, and turmeric to the tomatoes and onions, then pour the boiled mixture over them and mix thoroughly.

  3. Let cool before packing away.

Finish

  1. Optionally, add a small bottle of salad oil for extra flavor.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Clove + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,876 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Celery + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 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 soften during boiling to become tender.
Silver onions
Add savory bulk and mild flavor that soften into the pickle.
Brown sugar
Provides sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
White mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp flavor that mellows during pickling.
Vinegar
Supplies acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its tang.

The step that matters

Salting and rinsing the vegetables. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes and onions, firming them. Rinsing thoroughly removes excess salt, so the pickle is not overly salty once the sweet and acidic liquid is added.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, sugar, mustard, celery, clove, turmeric, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, mustard, celery, clove, turmeric, 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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