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Green Tomato Pickles

Pickled green tomatoes with onions, salt, vinegar, mustard seed, sugar, spices, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine green tomatoes and sliced onions in a large bowl.

  2. Sprinkle with salt and let stand overnight.

Cook

  1. Drain the mixture and boil in 1 quart of vinegar and 4 quarts of water for 10 minutes.

  2. Drain well and boil in 4 quarts of vinegar with mustard seed, brown sugar, red pepper, allspice, cinnamon, cloves, and ground mustard.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 pickle and its firm, tart body once cooked.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma that mellow during the long salt and vinegar soak.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the tomatoes and onions overnight, firming them and concentrating flavor.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp tang.
Brown sugar
Balances the vinegar's sharpness with sweetness and helps form a thick, syrupy liquid.
White mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, pungent flavor that deepens as the pickle cooks in vinegar.

The step that matters

Draining after the overnight salting. Salt draws out a great deal of water. Draining and rinsing well before boiling keeps the pickle from tasting harsh or overly salty and helps it stay crisp rather than watery.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, mustard, sugar, pepper, allspice, cinnamon. 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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