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Green Tomato Pickle

A pickle made from green tomatoes, spices, horseradish, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice or chop the green tomatoes and salt them overnight.

Make the pickle

  1. In the morning, mix the black pepper, mace, cloves, red pepper, and horseradish thoroughly.

  2. Put the mixture in a jar and cover with cold vinegar.

  3. Add onions to taste.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Horseradish + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + horseradishtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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, once salted, release moisture that the pickle absorbs.
Horseradish
Adds sharp, pungent heat that gives the pickle its bite.
Red pepper
Adds heat and a sharp, fiery flavour.
Cold vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it tang.

The step that matters

Salting the tomatoes overnight. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes through osmosis, firming their texture and reducing excess liquid. Skipping or shortening this step leaves the pickle watery and soft.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, clove, horseradish, vinegar, onion):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, clove, horseradish, vinegar, onion. 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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