Skip to main content
Main

French Pickle

A pickled green tomato relish with onions, vinegar, sugar, mustard seeds, cloves, spices, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

French Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine sliced green tomatoes and onions in a bowl, sprinkle with salt, and let sit overnight.

  2. Drain thoroughly, then boil in 2 quarts of water and 1 quart of vinegar for 15-20 minutes.

  3. Drain again in a colander.

Make the spiced vinegar

  1. In a pot, combine 4 quarts of vinegar, brown sugar, white mustard seed, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, ground mustard, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Cook the mixture for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 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 firm texture once salted and boiled.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory body that softens during boiling.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Brown sugar
Balances the acidity with sweetness and deepens the flavor.
White mustard seed
Adds pungent flavor that mellows as the pickle cooks.

The step that matters

Draining after the overnight salting. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes and onions; draining thoroughly removes that liquid so the vinegar syrup is not diluted and the pickle keeps a firmer texture.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, vinegar, sugar, mustard, clove, cinnamon, ginger):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, sugar, mustard, clove, cinnamon, 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream Tomato SoupCream Tomato Soup28 recipes