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Sauce

Governor's Sauce

A sauce made from green tomatoes, onions, vinegar, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Governor's Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the green tomatoes and onions, sprinkle with salt, and let stand overnight.

  2. Drain the mixture in a colander.

Cook

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar, brown sugar, celery seed, ground mustard, red pepper, cloves, and allspice.

  2. Boil the tomatoes and onions in the vinegar mixture until tender, adding more vinegar and sugar if necessary.

  3. Add whole spices and sprinkle them through the mixture. Optionally, add finely chopped celery.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  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

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the sauce and soften into a tender, chunky texture when boiled.
Onions
Add savory depth and body, softening into the sauce as it cooks.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the sauce and sharpens its flavour.
Ground mustard
Contributes a sharp, pungent bite that complements the vinegar and sugar.

The step that matters

Boil the tomatoes and onions until tender. Boiling long enough softens the vegetables fully, while the sugar and vinegar must be balanced to taste; adding more vinegar or sugar as needed keeps the sauce from becoming too sharp or too sweet.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, onion, vinegar, sugar, mustard, pepper, clove):

  1. Allspicefits about as well
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

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