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Spanish Pickle

A pickle of sliced green tomatoes and onions preserved in salt and vinegar with mustard seed and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Spanish Pickle

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spanish Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Layer the sliced tomatoes and onions in a stone vessel with the salt.

  2. Let it stand overnight.

Cook

  1. Drain the mixture and add vinegar, mustard seed, pepper, cloves, ginger, and cinnamon.

  2. Boil for 1.5 hours.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. 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 a firm, tart texture once cooked.
Onions
Add sweetness and body that soften during the long simmer.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the tomatoes and onions, firming them and concentrating flavour.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and sharpens its flavour.
White mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, pungent flavour that mellows during boiling.

The step that matters

Draining after the overnight salting. Salt draws out a lot of liquid. Draining it fully before adding the vinegar keeps the pickle from becoming watery and lets the vinegar and spices penetrate the vegetables.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, vinegar, mustard, pepper, clove, ginger, cinnamon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, mustard, pepper, clove, ginger, cinnamon. 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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