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Green Tomato Pickle

A pickled green tomato dish seasoned with vinegar, sugar, spices, and oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the tomatoes

  1. Layer sliced green tomatoes and coarse sea salt in a pan, alternating with sliced onions. Let the mixture sit overnight.

  2. The next morning, rinse and drain the tomatoes well.

Cook the pickles

  1. In a kettle, combine the tomatoes with cider vinegar, brown sugar, mustard, allspice, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, black pepper, celery seed, sliced peppers, ground mace, and olive oil.

  2. Boil the mixture for 3 to 4 hours.

  3. If the vinegar is not strong enough, add cold vinegar while the pickles are still warm.

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. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 spiced vinegar.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the tomatoes, firming them and reducing the liquid in the final pickle.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp tang.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Onions
Add savory flavour and moisture that blends into the pickle as it cooks.
Red or green peppers
Add sweetness, colour and a little body to the pickle.

The step that matters

Boiling for 3 to 4 hours. Long simmering evaporates water and concentrates the vinegar and sugar, which is what keeps the pickle stable. Stopping early leaves it wet and less preserved, while overcooking turns the tomatoes mushy.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, cider, vinegar, sugar, mustard, allspice, ginger):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, cider, vinegar, sugar, mustard, allspice, ginger. 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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