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Salad

Green Tomato Pickles

Pickled green tomatoes with onions, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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. Mix sliced green tomatoes and onions with salt and let stand overnight.

  2. In the morning, pour off the liquid.

  3. Pour 3 quarts of water over the tomatoes and boil for 20 minutes.

  4. Drain the tomatoes and discard the liquid.

Make the pickle

  1. In a large bowl, combine vinegar, sugar, allspice, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, and mustard. Stir well and mix with the tomatoes.

  2. Store in stone 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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 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
Provide the main bulk and firm texture that holds up to brining and boiling.
Onions
Add savory flavor and moisture that mingles with the tomatoes in the brine.
Salt
Draws out liquid from the tomatoes and onions, firming them and seasoning the pickle.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor to the spice blend.

The step that matters

Draining the salted tomatoes and onions. Salting draws out liquid overnight, and pouring it off and boiling in fresh water removes excess salt and moisture. If the tomatoes are not drained well, the pickling liquid is diluted and the pickle can taste harsh or spoil sooner.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, sugar, allspice, clove, ginger, 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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