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French Pickle

A pickled mixture of green tomatoes, cabbage, onions, green peppers, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

French Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, cabbage, onions, and green peppers.

  2. In a large bowl, mix the chopped vegetables with white mustard, mace, cloves, allspice, black pepper, sugar, celery seed, and olive oil.

  3. Pour enough cider vinegar over the mixture to cover it well and let it stand overnight.

Cook

  1. The next day, boil the mixture for 2 hours.

  2. Add more vinegar if needed to keep the mixture covered while boiling.

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

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

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 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 vinegar and spices as they soften.
Cabbage
Adds crunch and body that holds up through the long simmer.
Sugar
Balances the sharp vinegar with sweetness and helps preserve the mixture.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that sharpens flavor and helps keep the pickle preserved.
Celery seed
Contributes an aromatic, savory celery note to the pickle.

The step that matters

Keeping the mixture covered while boiling. If the vegetables are exposed as liquid evaporates, they can dry out and scorch on the pot base. Topping up the vinegar keeps everything submerged and cooking evenly, and keeps the acidity high enough to preserve the pickle.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cabbage, onion, pepper, mustard, 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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