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Green Tomato Pickle

A pickled green tomato and onion relish preserved in a vinegar and spice brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the vegetables

  1. Combine sliced green tomatoes and onions in a bowl with salt; mix thoroughly and let sit overnight.

  2. In the morning, pour off the liquid and discard it.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. Mix water and vinegar in a pot and boil for 20 minutes; drain and discard the liquid.

  2. In a large pot, combine 3 quarts of vinegar, sugar, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, mustard, and chopped green peppers.

  3. Boil the mixture for 1 to 2 hours.

Store

  1. Store the pickle in a stone crock.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 salt and spiced vinegar.
Sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, firming them and reducing the liquid in the pickle.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness to the pickle.
Onions
Add savory flavor and moisture that mingles with the tomatoes during salting.

The step that matters

Pouring off the salted liquid. Salt draws a lot of water out of the tomatoes and onions overnight. Discarding that liquid, then rinsing or draining well before the boil, keeps the vegetables firm and stops the pickle from tasting watery or overly salty.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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