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Green Tomato Pickle

A pickled green tomato and onion mixture flavored with sugar, vinegar, pepper, cloves, mustard seed, allspice, and prepared mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

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

  2. Drain the vegetables.

Cook

  1. In a kettle, combine sugar, vinegar, ground pepper, whole cloves, mustard seed, allspice, and prepared mustard.

  2. Add enough vinegar to cover the mixture and boil until tender.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 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 and soften into tender pieces as they cook in the spiced vinegar.
Onions
Add savory body and soften as they absorb the vinegar and sugar during boiling.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness to the pickle.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its tang.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that deepens the overall seasoning.

The step that matters

Salting and draining the vegetables. Salting draws water out of the tomatoes and onions through osmosis. Draining off that liquid before cooking keeps the pickle from becoming watery and helps the vegetables stay firm enough to hold their shape.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, sugar, vinegar, pepper, clove, mustard, allspice. 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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