Name: Green Tomato Pickles
Ingredients: tomatoes; coarse sea salt; vinegar; sugar; spices

Why it works: Vinegar and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Slice tomatoes at night and layer them in a colander, sprinkling coarse sea salt between each layer.
Let the tomatoes drain until morning.
Heat vinegar and sugar together until dissolved.
Add the tomatoes to the vinegar mixture and cook until done.
Can the hot mixture and place a bag of spices in each jar.

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.

Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Tomato + vinegartop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,063 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Tomato + sugartop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,667 recipes

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