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Green Tomoato Sweet Pickle

A sweet pickle made from green tomatoes, onions, spices, brown sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Green Tomoato Sweet Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sprinkle tomatoes and onions with salt and let sit for 24 hours.

  2. Pour off the salt and discard the onions.

  3. If too salty, wash tomatoes in clear water.

Make the pickle

  1. In a pot, combine allspice, ginger, cinnamon, celery seeds, coriander seeds, mustard seeds, brown sugar, and vinegar.

  2. Crush the spices and bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Remove from heat and adjust seasoning if necessary.

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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ginger + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Tomato + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Main vegetable; salting draws out its water so the pickle stays firmer.
Brown sugar
Provides the sweetness that defines a sweet pickle and balances the vinegar.
Vinegar
Supplies the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Mustard seeds
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour when simmered in the spiced liquid.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Salting and rinsing the tomatoes. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes, which firms their texture, but too much salt left on them makes the finished pickle harsh. Pouring off the salt and rinsing removes the surface excess before the sweet spiced vinegar is added.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, allspice, ginger, cinnamon, celery, coriander, mustard):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, allspice, ginger, cinnamon, celery, coriander, mustard. 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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