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Green Tomato Pickle

A pickle of sliced green tomatoes simmered in a sweet and spicy vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice tomatoes ½ inch thick.

  2. Layer 2 layers of tomatoes and 1 layer of coarse sea salt in a jar.

  3. Let stand overnight.

  4. Drain the tomatoes.

Cook and pickle

  1. Boil vinegar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar together.

  2. Drop tomatoes into the boiling mixture and cook until tender.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Tomato + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,348 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together879 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the main body of the pickle; their firm flesh holds shape through cooking.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the tomatoes overnight, firming them before they are cooked.
Vinegar
Supplies the acidity that preserves the tomatoes and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness to the syrup.
Ground cinnamon
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling syrup.

The step that matters

Drain the tomatoes before cooking. Salting draws out water overnight; if the tomatoes are not drained well, the extra liquid dilutes the vinegar and sugar syrup, weakening the flavour and preservative effect.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, nutmeg, vinegar, 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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