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Dessert

Green Tomato Pie

A pie made with sliced green tomatoes, sugar, lemon juice, water, flour, cinnamon, butter, and a pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the green tomatoes.

  2. Pour boiling water over the tomatoes and let them stand until cool, then drain.

Assemble the pie

  1. Line a pie plate with pastry.

  2. Fill the pie with the tomatoes, sugar, lemon juice, and water.

  3. Sprinkle the filling with flour and cinnamon.

  4. Dot the top with bits of butter.

  5. Cover with crust.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Tomato + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,348 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 and tart base of the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the green tomatoes.
Flour
Thickens the juices released by the tomatoes as the pie bakes.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat as it melts into the filling.
Pie crust
Forms the structure that holds the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Draining the tomatoes after boiling. Green tomatoes release a lot of liquid. Letting them cool and draining well keeps the filling from becoming watery, which would make the crust soggy and the filling loose when cut.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon, flour, cinnamon, butter):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, flour, cinnamon, butter. 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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