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French Pickles

A pickled green tomato and onion relish seasoned with salt, vinegar, sugar, mustard, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

French Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Mix sliced green tomatoes and onions in a large bowl, then sprinkle with salt and let stand overnight.

  2. The next day, drain the mixture, then boil it in 1 quart vinegar and 2 quarts water for 15 minutes, and drain again.

Make the pickling liquid and finish

  1. In a large pot, combine 4 quarts vinegar, brown sugar, mustard seed, allspice, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and mustard.

  2. Boil the mixture for 15 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.

  1. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  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
Form the bulk of the pickle and soften as they cook in the vinegar.
Onions
Add savory flavor and body to the pickle.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the tomatoes and onions so they stay firmer.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that preserves and flavors the pickle.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, pungent flavor to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Draining after the salt rest. Salt draws out a lot of liquid overnight. Draining it well, and boiling in fresh vinegar and water, removes excess salt and moisture so the pickle stays firm and is not overly salty.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, sugar, mustard, allspice, cinnamon, clove. 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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