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Tomato Pickles

A pickled relish of green peppers, green tomatoes, onions, and spices in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine green peppers, green tomatoes, onions, and coarse sea salt in a large bowl.

  2. Let stand overnight and drain.

Cook

  1. In the morning, add vinegar and boil for 15 minutes.

  2. Stir in brown sugar, mustard seed, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, ginger, and celery seed.

  3. Boil the mixture for an additional 20 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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 as they cook in the vinegar syrup.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that preserves and flavours the pickles.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, firming them before cooking.
Mustard seed
Contributes a pungent, slightly bitter flavour that deepens during boiling.

The step that matters

Draining after the overnight rest. Salt draws water out of the vegetables overnight; if they are not drained well, the excess liquid dilutes the vinegar syrup and the pickles can turn out watery and less well preserved.

Swap the onion

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

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

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