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Green Tomato

A pickled green tomato relish with onions, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Coriander and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,498 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Green Tomato

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the green tomatoes and layer them in a jar, sprinkling each layer with coarse sea salt.

  2. Add the sliced onions in layers with the tomatoes.

  3. Let the mixture stand for 24 hours to drain.

Cook

  1. After draining, add coriander seed, chopped red pepper, sliced lemons, English mustard, brown sugar, bruised white mustard seed, ginger, cloves, allspice, black pepper, and celery seed.

  2. Layer the tomatoes and seasoning alternately in a skillet.

  3. Cover with strong vinegar and simmer briskly until the tomatoes are clear.

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. Coriander + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,498 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Coriander + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Tomato + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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 soften into a tender, translucent texture when simmered.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and body to the vinegar, balancing its sharpness.
Strong vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tang.
White mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour that mellows during simmering.
Silver onions
Contribute sweetness and body to the pickle as they cook down.
Lemons
Add fresh citrus acidity and aroma to the pickle.

The step that matters

Simmer briskly until the tomatoes are clear. Simmering drives off excess moisture and softens the tomato cell walls so the pieces turn translucent and absorb the vinegar and sugar. Undercooked tomatoes stay firm and watery, while overcooking can break them down into a mush.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, coriander, pepper, lemon, mustard, sugar, ginger):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, coriander, pepper, lemon, mustard, sugar, ginger. 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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