Skip to main content
Main

Chopped Pickle

A pickled relish of green tomatoes, onions, and peppers seasoned with spices and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Chopped Pickle

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 ↓

Chopped Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, onions, and peppers finely, leaving some seeds in the peppers.

  2. Mix the chopped vegetables with a big handful of coarse sea salt and let it stand overnight.

  3. In the morning, drain the mixture well.

Pickle and seal

  1. Add brown sugar, black pepper, ground cloves, allspice, white mustard seed, and celery seed to the drained vegetables.

  2. Pour boiling hot cider vinegar over the mixture.

  3. Pack into jars or wide-mouthed bottles and seal tightly.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 give it its firm, tart body.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the chopped vegetables, firming them and concentrating flavour.
Brown sugar
Balances the vinegar's sharpness with sweetness and adds a molasses depth.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp tang.
White mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent bite that mellows as the pickle stands.
Onions
Add pungency and savoury body that blends into the relish.

The step that matters

Draining after the overnight salting. Salt has drawn liquid out of the vegetables; draining it well keeps the pickle from becoming watery and lets the vinegar hold its acidity and texture.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, sugar, clove, allspice, mustard, celery. 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.

More pickled green tomatoes recipes

Sweet 11and Peppers 3 See all 57 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes