Skip to main content
Drink

Chopped Pickles

A pickled mixture of green tomatoes, cabbage, onions, horseradish, mustard seeds, pepper, cloves, red peppers, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chopped Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, cabbage, and onions separately and put them in salt overnight.

  2. Drain the tomatoes, onions, and cabbage through a sieve, then wash and rinse the vegetables.

Combine and pickle

  1. Add the horseradish, mustard seeds, black pepper, cloves, and chopped red peppers to the mixture.

  2. Pour cold vinegar over the mixture.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 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 give it its tart, firm body.
Cabbage
Adds crunch and bulk, holding texture through the pickling.
Onions
Contribute savory flavor and aroma to the pickle.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp flavor that mellows as the pickle sits.
Cold vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and sharpens the flavor.
Horseradish
Contributes a sharp, pungent heat and aroma.

The step that matters

Draining and rinsing after the salt soak. Salting draws water out of the vegetables, and rinsing removes excess salt. Thorough draining keeps the pickle crisp and stops surplus liquid from diluting the vinegar, while leftover salt would make it too harsh.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Broccolifits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, onion, horseradish, mustard, pepper, 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.

More green tomato pickles recipes

Sweet 20 See all 141 →

You might also like

Raspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesSugar VinegarSugar Vinegar20 recipesVegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipes