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Sweet Pickle

A sweet pickle made from green tomatoes, onions, vinegar, spices, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sweet Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Combine green tomatoes and sliced onions in a large bowl with salt and water.

  2. Let the mixture stand for 24 hours.

  3. Strain off the water.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. Boil the tomatoes and onions in 3 quarts of vinegar until tender.

  2. Remove the tomatoes and onions from the vinegar.

  3. In the same vinegar, add mace, cloves, ginger, black pepper, mustard powder, olive oil, and brown sugar.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  5. Pour the hot mixture over the tomatoes and onions, adding a little celery seed if desired.

Store

  1. Store the pickles in a cool place; they will keep well.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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 a tender, sour-edged texture.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp flavor.
Brown sugar
Balances the vinegar with sweetness and adds depth to the syrupy liquid.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aroma as they soften in the pickling liquid.
Olive oil
Adds a little fat that gives the pickling liquid a rounder mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Draining after the 24-hour salt stand. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes and onions, so straining off that liquid firmly helps them stay crisp rather than watery and lets the vinegar mixture work properly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, vinegar, clove, ginger, pepper, mustard. 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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