Name: Pickled Green Tomatoes
Ingredients: 1 peck green tomatoes; 2 quarts small white onions; 1 dozen green peppers; 1 cup coarse sea salt; 1 cup sugar; 1 tablespoon cloves; 1 tablespoon allspice; 1 stick of cinnamon

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 ↓

Pickled Green Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Slice tomatoes and mix with salt.
Let sit overnight.
Drain off water and discard it.

Pickle

Combine all ingredients in a pot and bring to a boil.
Store mixture for later use.

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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes: Main vegetable; its firm flesh holds its shape through salting and simmering.
Coarse sea salt: Draws water out of the sliced tomatoes, firming them and reducing their moisture.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the tangy, savoury flavour of the pickle.
Small white onions: Adds savoury body and mild sweetness as they cook in the pickling mixture.
Cloves: Contributes warm, aromatic spice to the pickling liquid.

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Carrotfits better
Sweet potatofits better
Onionthe original

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