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Chopped Pickle

Pickled green tomatoes, onions, and peppers preserved in vinegar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Chopped Pickle

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Chopped Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

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

  2. Cook the chopped vegetables in salt water until tender.

  3. Drain and then cook in weak vinegar until tender.

Make the pickling syrup

  1. In a pot, combine fresh vinegar, sugar, mustard, cinnamon, cloves, and white mustard seed.

  2. Cook the mixture together for 2 hours.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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 and firm texture that holds up through long cooking.
Fresh vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the pickles and sharpens their flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness.
White mustard seed
Contributes pungent, slightly bitter flavour and crunch to the pickles.
Onions
Add savoury depth and moisture that softens into the pickle.

The step that matters

Cook the vegetables until tender before adding the syrup. Vegetables cooked too briefly stay raw and firm, and they will not absorb the vinegar and spice mixture evenly. Draining well after salt water also keeps the pickle from tasting diluted or overly salty.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, vinegar, sugar, mustard, cinnamon, clove. 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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