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Green Tomato Pickles

Pickled green tomatoes with onions, green beans, brown sugar, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

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

  2. Let the tomatoes sit overnight.

  3. In the morning, drain the tomatoes in a colander.

  4. Slice the onions and prepare the green beans.

Cook

  1. In a large porcelain kettle, combine the drained tomatoes, onions, green beans, brown sugar, and vinegar. Add the celery salt, celery seed, mustard seed, turmeric powder, and allspice.

  2. Cook the mixture all afternoon.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Celery + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Tomato + green beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together113 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; salting draws out moisture so they stay firmer.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tang.
Onions
Add savory bulk and sweetness that mellows during the long cooking.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture all afternoon. A long, gentle simmer lets the vinegar and sugar penetrate the vegetables and thickens the mixture. Cooking too briefly leaves the vegetables raw-tasting and the liquid thin.

Swap the green beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, onion, sugar, vinegar, celery, mustard, turmeric):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Green beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, sugar, vinegar, celery, mustard, turmeric. 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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