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Chopped Pickles

A pickled green tomato relish with onions, peppers, spices, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Chopped Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the green tomatoes finely and sprinkle with salt.

  2. Let them stand overnight.

  3. Drain the tomatoes in a colander.

Make the pickles

  1. Add the chopped onions, red peppers, ground cinnamon, ground cloves, celery salt, white mustard seed, ginger, brown sugar, and vinegar to the tomatoes.

  2. Boil the mixture for thirty minutes.

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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 hold texture after salting and draining.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp flavour.
Brown sugar
Balances the vinegar's sharpness with sweetness and adds depth to the flavour.
Onions
Add savoury bulk and sweetness that mellows during boiling.
White mustard seed
Contributes pungent, sharp flavour that develops as the pickle cooks.

The step that matters

Salting and draining the tomatoes overnight. Salt draws water out of the chopped tomatoes through osmosis. Draining away that liquid keeps the pickle from becoming watery and dilute once the vinegar is added.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, cinnamon, clove, celery, mustard, 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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