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Green Tomato Pickles

A pickled green tomato dish with black pepper, mustard, cloves, vinegar, salt, onions, and a brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the tomatoes and remove any spots.

  2. Slice the tomatoes and layer them with onions and salt in a bowl.

  3. Cover and let stand overnight.

  4. In the morning, drain off the liquid.

Cook and jar

  1. Put the tomatoes and onions in a pot with vinegar and simmer gently for twenty minutes.

  2. Transfer to stone or glass jars.

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. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the main body of the pickle, becoming tender after salting and simmering.
Vinegar
Supplies the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp flavour.
Salt
Draws liquid out of the tomatoes and onions during the overnight standing.
Onions
Add savoury flavour and aroma that blends into the vinegar during simmering.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, warm spice that flavours the pickling liquid.
Whole cloves
Contribute a warm, aromatic spice to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Drain off the liquid in the morning. Salt draws a large amount of liquid out of the tomatoes overnight. Pouring it off before simmering keeps the pickle from becoming watery and diluted.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, mustard, clove, 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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