Skip to main content
Main

Green Tomato Pickles

Pickled green tomatoes with onions, salt, vinegar, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tomato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,633 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the tomatoes into ½ inch slices and layer them with salt.

  2. Let them stand overnight.

  3. In the morning, drain off the salt juice and place the tomatoes in a porcelain kettle.

Cook

  1. Cover the tomatoes with vinegar, add the sugar, and the bag of spices.

  2. Cook slowly for 1 hour or until the tomatoes are cooked through but not soft.

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. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  2. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Tomato + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,063 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Tomato + sugartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Hard green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the pickles, holding their shape during slow cooking.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture from the tomatoes so they firm up and drain before cooking.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the tomatoes and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until cooked through but not soft. Tomatoes that simmer too hard break down into mush. Gentle heat softens the flesh while the cell walls hold, so the slices keep a firm bite.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, vinegar, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, sugar. 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.

More green tomato pickles recipes

Sweet 20 See all 141 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream Tomato SoupCream Tomato Soup28 recipes