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Green Tomato Pickles

Pickled green tomatoes with onions, garlic, green peppers, spices, vinegar, brown sugar, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and slice the green tomatoes, onions, garlic, and green peppers.

  2. Sprinkle coarse sea salt over the vegetables and let them sit overnight.

  3. In the morning, drain the vegetables.

Cook

  1. Combine the mixed mustard, ground ginger, ground allspice, ground mace, and ground turmeric in a muslin bag.

  2. Layer the tomatoes and spices alternately in a kettle.

  3. Add 2 gallons of strong vinegar and 2 pounds of brown sugar.

  4. Boil until the vegetables are tender.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  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
Form the bulk of the pickle, providing the body of the finished relish.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and warm spices.
Strong vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Onions
Add bulk and savory flavor that mellows during long simmering.

The step that matters

Boil until the vegetables are tender. Boiling long enough softens the vegetables so they absorb the vinegar and spices, but overcooking turns them mushy. Checking for tenderness rather than relying on time gives a better texture.

Swap the mace

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

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

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