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Green Tomato Pickles

Pickled green tomatoes with onions, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove 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 ↓

Green Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the green tomatoes and onions.

  2. Layer tomatoes in a jar, followed by onions and a sprinkling of coarse sea salt. Repeat until all ingredients are used.

  3. Let the jar stand aside overnight.

  4. The next morning, drain off all the liquid.

Cook and store

  1. Place the mixture in a porcelain kettle, add the spices, and cover with vinegar.

  2. Simmer gently for 15 minutes.

  3. Store in stone or glass jars.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Mustard + oniontop 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
Form the bulk of the pickle and provide its tart, fresh body.
Coarse sea salt
Draws liquid out of the tomatoes and onions, firming them for pickling.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Onions
Add sharpness and savory depth that balances the tomatoes.
Mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, pungent flavor to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Drain off all the liquid. Salting draws out water; if liquid is left behind, the pickle stays watery and dilutes the vinegar, weakening its texture and keeping quality.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, allspice, mustard, onion, clove, vinegar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, allspice, mustard, onion, clove, vinegar. 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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