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Chopped Pickle

A pickled mixture of green tomatoes, onions, and peppers seasoned with spices and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Chopped Pickle

Why it works: Clove and allspice 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 ↓

Chopped Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, onions, and peppers finely, leaving some seeds in the peppers.

  2. Mix the chopped vegetables with the coarse sea salt and let it stand overnight.

  3. In the morning, drain the mixture well.

Season and pack

  1. Add the brown sugar, black pepper, ground cloves, allspice, white mustard seed, and celery seed.

  2. Pour boiling hot cider vinegar over the mixture.

  3. Transfer to jars or wide-mouthed bottles and seal tightly.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 chopped body and tart flavor that the pickle is built around.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses note that balances the sharp vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the chopped vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp tang.
White mustard seed
Contributes pungent, slightly bitter flavor that deepens as the pickle sits.
Onions
Add savory bulk and aroma that soften slightly during the salt rest.

The step that matters

Draining after the overnight salt rest. Salt draws a large amount of water out of the vegetables overnight. Draining well removes that liquid so the pickle stays crisp and does not dilute the vinegar and spice mixture.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, sugar, clove, allspice, mustard, celery. 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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