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Green Tomato Pickles

Pickled green tomatoes, onions, and peppers in a vinegar brine with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Salt and drain

  1. Layer the tomatoes, onions, and peppers in an earthen jar with salt and let stand overnight.

  2. In the morning, drain the mixture in a colander for 1 hour.

Cook the pickle

  1. Transfer the vegetables to a kettle and pour in the cider vinegar.

  2. Add the sugar, cloves, cinnamon, and allspice bag.

  3. Cook slowly for 20 minutes.

  4. Just before removing from heat, stir in the mustard seed.

Store and finish

  1. Store in a covered earthen jar in a cool place for 3 weeks.

  2. After 3 weeks, boil the mixture again with an additional ¼ cup of sugar and seal in hot 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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 soften as they cook in the vinegar.
Salt
Draws moisture out of the vegetables so they stay firmer in the pickle.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar with sweetness.
White onions
Add savory flavor and body to the pickle.

The step that matters

Draining after salting. Salt draws water out of the vegetables overnight; draining removes that liquid so the pickle stays firm and the vinegar is not diluted. Skipping or shortening the drain leaves a watery, softer result.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, cider, vinegar, sugar, clove, 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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