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Tomato Soy

A pickled mixture of green tomatoes, onions, cabbage, and bell peppers flavored with vinegar, mustard, sugar, spices, and seeds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,645 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Soy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine chopped green tomatoes, white onions, cabbage, and bell peppers in a bowl.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and let stand for 24 hours.

Cook and reduce

  1. Drain the vegetables and boil them in a mixture of vinegar and water for 20 minutes.

  2. Drain again and place in a pot with 1 gallon of vinegar, mustard, sugar, cinnamon, mace, ginger, allspice, white mustard seeds, celery seeds, and turmeric.

  3. Boil the mixture for a few minutes, then remove the vegetables.

  4. Continue boiling the syrup until it thickens.

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. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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
Provide the bulk of the pickle and release moisture that mingles with the vinegar.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables so they stay firmer after the long soak.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and sharpens its flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it boils down, thickens the syrup.
White mustard seeds
Contribute a sharp, pungent flavour that carries through the cooked syrup.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow colour and a warm, earthy flavour.

The step that matters

Continue boiling the syrup until it thickens. Boiling drives off water and concentrates the vinegar and sugar, so the syrup thickens and the pickle keeps well. Stopping too early leaves it thin and less stable.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, cabbage, pepper, vinegar, mustard, sugar, cinnamon. 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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