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Sliced Green Tomato Pickles

Pickles made from sliced green tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, cloves, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Sliced Green Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the sliced green tomatoes in weak salt water overnight.

  2. In the morning, drain the tomatoes.

Cook and seal

  1. Cook the tomatoes in vinegar and sugar until tender.

  2. Add whole cloves and cinnamon for spice.

  3. Seal the pickles in jars.

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. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Tomato + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,348 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 pickles and become tender during cooking.
Vinegar
Provides the sour acidity that preserves and flavors the pickles.
Sugar
Balances the sourness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Whole cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice flavor.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet spice aroma.

The step that matters

Cook the tomatoes until tender. Cooking in hot vinegar and sugar softens the tomato flesh and lets the syrup penetrate. Stopping too early leaves the tomatoes firm, while overcooking makes them mushy and breaks down their structure.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, clove, 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.

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