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Green Tomato Soy

A preserved green tomato relish made with salt, onions, spices, mustard, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,928 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Green Tomato Soy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the green tomatoes and mix with coarse sea salt.

  2. Let the mixture stand for 24 hours.

  3. Drain the tomatoes and place them in a preserving kettle.

Cook

  1. Add sliced onions, black pepper, allspice, ground mustard, and mustard seed.

  2. Cover with vinegar and boil for about 2 hours until thick like jam.

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. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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, as they cook down, a thick, jam-like body.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the tomatoes, firming them and concentrating their flavor before cooking.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and body that softens into the thickened pickle.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the pickle and sharpens its flavor.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp flavor that deepens as the pickle simmers.

The step that matters

Cover with vinegar and boil for about 2 hours until thick like jam. Long simmering evaporates water and concentrates sugars and acids, so the pickle thickens and keeps. Stopping too early leaves it watery and less shelf-stable, while overcooking can scorch the bottom of the kettle.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, allspice, mustard, 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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