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Tomato Pickle

A pickled green tomato and onion mixture spiced with mace, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, celery seed, mustard seed, ground mustard, turmeric, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sprinkle the sliced green tomatoes and onions with coarse sea salt and let them stand for three days.

  2. Drain the tomatoes and onions, then place them in a kettle.

Cook

  1. Stir in the mace, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, celery seed, mustard seed, ground mustard, and turmeric.

  2. Cover the mixture with vinegar and cook slowly for one hour, stirring occasionally.

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. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 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
Form the bulk of the pickle and soften as they cook in the vinegar.
Onions
Add savoury bulk and sweetness that mellows during slow cooking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the pickle and sharpens its flavour.
Mustard seed
Contributes a pungent, sharp aroma and bite to the pickle.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for one hour, stirring occasionally. Slow cooking lets the tomatoes and onions soften and absorb the vinegar and spices evenly. Stirring prevents the sugar-rich mixture from scorching on the bottom of the kettle.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ginger, cinnamon, allspice, celery, mustard, turmeric, sugar):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, cinnamon, allspice, celery, mustard, turmeric, sugar. 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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