Name: Mrs. Thomas Ewing's Pickled Green Tomatoes
Ingredients: 1 peck green tomatoes, sliced; 1 dozen onions, sliced; Coarse sea salt; 1 box prepared mustard; 2 teaspoons black pepper (whole); 1 teaspoon cloves; 1 teaspoon white mustard seed; 1 teaspoon allspice; Vinegar (enough to cover)

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 ↓

Mrs. Thomas Ewing's Pickled Green Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Sprinkle sliced green tomatoes and onions with coarse sea salt and let stand overnight.
Drain the vegetables and layer them in a kettle.

Cook

Add prepared mustard, black pepper, cloves, white mustard seed, and allspice.
Cover completely with vinegar and bring to a boil.
Boil for about 30 minutes.

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.

Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,928 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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: Provide the bulk of the pickle and firm texture that holds up to long simmering.
Onions: Add sweetness and savory depth that mellows during the salt rest and cooking.
Vinegar: Provides the acidity that preserves and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Prepared mustard: Adds sharpness and a tangy background flavour to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Salting overnight, then draining. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes and onions through osmosis. Draining well after the rest removes this liquid so the pickle stays firm and is not diluted in the kettle.

Swap the tomato

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

Horseradishfits better
Shallotfits better
Capsicumfits better
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, mustard, pepper, clove, allspice, vinegar. 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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Mrs. Thomas Ewing's Pickled Green Tomatoes