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Pickled Green Tomatoes

Pickled green tomatoes with peppers, onions, mustard seed, brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, salt, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Pickled Green Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the green tomatoes, green peppers, and onions.

  2. Combine the sliced vegetables with mustard seed, brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and salt in a large bowl.

Pickle

  1. Cover the mixture with vinegar.

  2. Boil until the tomatoes can be cut with a fork.

  3. Let the tomatoes sit in salt and water overnight.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked 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
Form the bulk of the pickle and soften into tender pieces when boiled.
Green peppers
Add crunch and a fresh, grassy flavour that holds its shape during cooking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the pickle its sour, tangy character.
Mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, aromatic flavour as the pickle steeps.

The step that matters

Boil until the tomatoes can be cut with a fork. Heat softens the tomatoes' cell walls so they become tender while still holding their shape. Boiling too briefly leaves them hard and boiling too long turns them mushy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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