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Green Tomato Soy

A pickled relish of sliced green tomatoes and onions seasoned with vinegar, sugar, salt, mustard seed, pepper, cloves, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Soy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the tomatoes and onions without peeling them.

Cook

  1. In a large pot, combine the tomatoes, onions, vinegar, sugar, salt, mustard seed, black pepper, cloves, and allspice.

  2. Stew the mixture until tender, stirring often.

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

Tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the pickle and soften into tender pieces as they stew.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the pickle.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Onions
Add savory flavor and soften into the stewed mixture.

The step that matters

Stew until tender. Stewing long enough softens the tomatoes and onions fully and lets the vinegar and spices blend. Stirring often keeps the mixture from scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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