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Salad

Qreen Tomato Pickle

A pickled green tomato and onion relish with spices and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice 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 ↓

Qreen Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Layer sliced tomatoes and onions in a stone jar, sprinkling each layer lightly with salt.

  2. Weight down the layers for 12 hours, then let them drain.

Make the spiced vinegar

  1. In a bowl, mix sugar, cinnamon, mace, ginger, allspice, black pepper, cloves, and celery seed with a little cold vinegar until smooth.

  2. Add the remaining gallon of vinegar to the mixture.

Cook and cool

  1. In a porcelain kettle, combine the tomatoes with the mustard seed and horseradish strips.

  2. Stew slowly, stirring often with a wooden spoon to prevent burning.

  3. The pickle is ready for use once it has cooled.

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. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  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
Provide the bulk of the pickle and absorb the spiced vinegar and sugar as they stew.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and helps preserve the pickle.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that sharpens flavor and keeps the pickle stable.
White mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent flavor that holds up during long stewing.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and body as they soften with the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Stew slowly and stir often. Sugar and tomato sugars scorch easily on the bottom of the kettle, so frequent stirring with low, slow heat prevents burning and off flavors.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, mustard, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, 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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