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Green Tomato Pickles

Pickles made from sliced green tomatoes preserved in a vinegar and spice brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 ↓

Green Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Sprinkle salt over sliced tomatoes and let stand overnight.

  2. Drain tomatoes through a colander.

  3. Boil tomatoes in 2 quarts of water and 1 quart of vinegar for about 5 minutes, then drain again.

Make the pickling syrup

  1. Combine 3 quarts of vinegar, brown sugar, mustard, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, and chopped green peppers in a pot.

  2. Boil the mixture for 10 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  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
Provide the bulk of the pickle, firm slices that hold their shape after brining and simmering.
Vinegar
Supplies the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle and balances the sugar.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth, offsetting the sharpness of the vinegar.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the tomato slices, firming them and seasoning them before pickling.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm aroma and spice flavour to the pickling syrup.

The step that matters

Salting the tomatoes overnight. Salt draws moisture out of the slices by osmosis. Draining well afterward keeps the syrup from being diluted and helps the tomatoes stay firm rather than soft.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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