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Jackson Pickles

Pickled green tomatoes with mustard seed, horseradish, green pepper, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and radish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 297 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Jackson Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Slice the green tomatoes.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and let sit overnight.

  3. In the morning, pour clear water over the tomatoes and drain immediately, ensuring all water is removed.

Pack and cover

  1. Pack the tomatoes in jars in layers with white mustard seed, chopped horse-radish, and small bits of green pepper (about 6 per peck of tomatoes).

  2. Cover the packed tomatoes with cold vinegar and tie a cloth over the 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. Mustard + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Mustard + horsetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together201 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

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

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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; their firm flesh stays crisp after salting and brining.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the tomatoes, firming their texture before they are packed.
Cold vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp, tangy flavour.
White mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour that mellows as the pickle sits.
Horse-radish
Contributes a pungent, sharp heat that complements the tart tomatoes.

The step that matters

Drain off all the salt water in the morning. Rinsing and draining removes excess salt and liquid. Any water left behind dilutes the vinegar and can make the pickles soft and less safe to store.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, horse, radish, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, horse, radish, pepper, 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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