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Chopped Pickles

A pickled mixture of green tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, peppers, celery, and celery seed in cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and cucumber are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,405 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chopped Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, green cucumbers, white onions, green peppers, and celery.

  2. Mix in the celery seed.

Salt and drain

  1. Pack the mixture in salt and let it sit for 12 hours.

  2. Squeeze out excess liquid and scald the pure cider vinegar.

Pickle

  1. Pour the hot vinegar over the packed vegetables.

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. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 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
Make up the bulk of the pickle and add tart, fresh vegetable flavor.
Green cucumbers
Add bulk and a crisp, fresh bite to the mixture.
White onions
Add sharp, savory flavor that mellows during the pickling.
Green peppers
Add bulk and a grassy, slightly bitter note.
Celery seed
Adds a warm, aromatic flavor that defines the pickle's taste.
Pure cider vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the vegetables.

The step that matters

Squeezing out the excess liquid after salting. Salt draws water out of the vegetables. If the excess liquid is not squeezed out, the hot vinegar is diluted and the pickle can turn out watery and less firm.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, cucumber, pepper, celery, cider, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cucumber, pepper, celery, cider, 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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