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Green Tomato Pickle

Pickled green tomatoes preserved in a sweet vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Slice the green tomatoes.

  2. Soak the sliced tomatoes overnight in a mixture of salt and water.

  3. Strain the tomatoes.

Make and cook the pickles

  1. Combine the brown sugar, malt vinegar, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice in a large pot to make a syrup.

  2. Add the strained tomatoes to the syrup.

  3. Boil the mixture until the tomatoes are soft.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Tomato + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,348 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the pickle and soften into tender pieces during boiling.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the pickle while building a thick, syrupy body.
Malt vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the pickle its sharp tang and helps preserve it.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the tomatoes during soaking, firming them before cooking.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until the tomatoes are soft. Cook until the tomatoes are fully tender and the syrup has thickened. Stopping early leaves firm, raw-tasting pieces, while overcooking can break them down into mush.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, malt, vinegar, cinnamon, clove, allspice. 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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