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French Pickle

A pickle of green tomatoes with onions, salt, vinegar, sugar, mustard, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 chopped tomatoes, chopped onions, and salt in a bowl. Let it stand overnight.

  2. Drain off the water.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. In a pot, combine 2 quarts of water and 1 quart of vinegar. Boil for 20 minutes and strain through a colander.

  2. In a kettle, combine 2 quarts of vinegar, sugar, mustard seed, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and ground mustard. Boil for 15 minutes.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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
Provide the bulk of the pickle and firm texture once salted and drained.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves and gives the pickle its tang.
Mustard seed
Contributes pungent flavour and a slight crunch to the pickle.
Onions
Add savoury flavour and moisture to the mix.

The step that matters

Salting and draining the vegetables overnight. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes and onions through osmosis. Draining off that liquid keeps the pickle firmer and stops it from diluting the vinegar brine.

Swap the onion

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

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

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