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Green Tomato Pickles

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Layer sliced tomatoes in a jar, sprinkling a little coarse sea salt over each layer.

  2. Let them stand for 24 hours, then drain off the liquid.

Cook

  1. In a kettle, combine the tomatoes with ginger, allspice, cloves, mace, cinnamon, horseradish, peppers, onions, and brown sugar.

  2. Cover with vinegar and boil slowly for 3 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.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Ginger + clovetop 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
Form the bulk of the pickle and soften into a tender, spoonable texture during slow cooking.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the tomatoes, firming their texture before the liquid is drained away.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the pickle.
Red peppers
Add mild sweetness and colour, and bulk to the pickle.

The step that matters

Salting and draining the tomatoes. Salt draws water out of the sliced tomatoes, which firms their texture. Draining off that liquid before cooking keeps excess water from diluting the vinegar and sugar, so the pickle sets properly rather than turning watery.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, ginger, allspice, clove, cinnamon, horseradish, pepper. 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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