Skip to main content
Main

Black Pickle

A pickled green tomato recipe using vinegar, spices, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Black Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Sprinkle the salt over the sliced tomatoes and let them stand overnight.

  2. In the morning, squeeze out the salt and place the tomatoes in a kettle.

Cook

  1. Mix the ground cloves, ginger, brown sugar, black pepper, allspice, and dry mustard in a bowl.

  2. Sprinkle the spice mixture over the tomatoes and add the vinegar.

  3. Boil slowly for 5 hours, stirring frequently to avoid burning.

Jar and store

  1. Transfer the pickles to jars, ensuring the vinegar covers them well.

  2. Cork and seal the jars.

  3. They will keep for years if stored properly.

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. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 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. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 as they cook in the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp flavor.
Brown sugar
Balances the vinegar's sharpness with sweetness and helps thicken the syrup.
Sea salt
Draws water out of the tomatoes overnight, firming them before cooking.
Ground cloves
Adds warm aromatic spice that flavors the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Boiling slowly for 5 hours. Long, gentle simmering with frequent stirring softens the tomatoes and concentrates the vinegar and sugar. Without stirring, the sugars can scorch on the bottom of the kettle, giving a burnt taste.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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

More pickled green tomatoes recipes

Sweet 11and Peppers 3 See all 57 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream Tomato SoupCream Tomato Soup28 recipes