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Pickled Lime Relish

A sweet and tangy relish made from green tomatoes, pickled limes, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and lime are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,878 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pickled Lime Relish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the green tomatoes, chopped pickled limes, and sugar in a large pot.

  2. Cook the mixture slowly over low heat for 3 to 4 hours, stirring occasionally.

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 + limetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,878 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Lime + sugartop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,332 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Tomato + sugartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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 and tart body of the relish, which softens and thickens as it cooks.
Pickled limes
Add salty, sour, and aromatic flavor that defines the relish.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the relish and thicken it as it cooks down.

The step that matters

Cooking low and slow with occasional stirring. Sugar and tomato juices can scorch on the bottom of the pot if heat is too high or the mixture is left unstirred. Gentle heat lets moisture evaporate evenly and the relish thicken without burning.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lime, sugar):

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lime, sugar. 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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