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Gkeen Tomato Sauce

A sauce made from sliced green tomatoes, onions, spices, and vinegar, simmered for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 7,874 recipes mention both. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Gkeen Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Sprinkle sliced green tomatoes with coarse sea salt and press with a plate.

  2. Let drain for 24 hours.

Cook the sauce

  1. In a porcelain kettle, layer the drained tomatoes with sliced onions and the spice mixture.

  2. Cover with vinegar and simmer for 2 hours, or until the tomatoes look clear.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 sauce and, once cooked down, its body and texture.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth that balances the sharp vinegar.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent flavor and a slight bite to the sauce.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the sauce and sharpens its flavor.

The step that matters

Draining the salted tomatoes. Salt draws out water from the sliced tomatoes through osmosis. Draining for the full 24 hours removes excess liquid, so the simmered sauce thickens rather than turning watery.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Horseradishbetter flavor fit
  3. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, mustard, clove, pepper, ginger, allspice, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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