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Preserve

Highden Pickles

A pickling method for green tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, green peppers, and small tomatoes using vinegar, mustard, spices, sugar, cinnamon, cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Highden Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chopped vegetables

  1. Chop fine equal quantities of green tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and green peppers.

  2. Sprinkle with salt.

  3. Let them stand for one day.

  4. Pour off the water.

  5. Pour on boiling vinegar with mustard and spices.

Prepare the pickled tomatoes

  1. For pickled tomatoes, scald small, smooth tomatoes until the skin slips off easily.

  2. Sprinkle salt over the tomatoes.

  3. Let them stand for twenty-four hours.

  4. Drain off the juice.

  5. Pour on a boiling hot pickle made of 1 pound of sugar, 2 teaspoons of cinnamon, and 2 teaspoons of cloves for every quart of vinegar.

  6. Drain off the liquid, scald it, and pour it on the tomatoes again every other day for a week.

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. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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
Provides the bulk of the chopped pickle and its tart, firm texture.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that preserves and flavours the pickle.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness in the tomato pickle.
Salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, firming them and concentrating flavour.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma to the sweet pickle syrup.
Cloves
Adds warm, pungent aroma to the sweet pickle syrup.

The step that matters

Draining and re-pouring the hot pickle. Salting and draining remove water so the pickle stays crisp and does not dilute. Scalding the syrup each time keeps it hot enough to penetrate and help preserve the tomatoes.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, cucumber, pepper, vinegar, mustard, sugar, cinnamon):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cucumber, pepper, vinegar, mustard, sugar, 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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