Skip to main content
Main

Green Tomato Pickle

A pickle made from green tomatoes, onions, spices, brown sugar, vinegar, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice the green tomatoes and onions.

  2. Sprinkle each layer with a little coarse sea salt.

  3. Set aside for 24 hours.

  4. Drain the mixture through a sieve.

Cook the pickles

  1. Place it in a kettle with pepper pods, mustard seed, allspice, mace, black pepper, cloves, and brown sugar.

  2. Cover the mixture with strong vinegar.

  3. Simmer until the tomatoes look clear.

  4. Add the box of mustard.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 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
Form the bulk of the pickle and give it its tart, fresh body.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and bulk that softens during simmering.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Strong vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle flavor.
Mustard seed
Contributes sharp, pungent flavor that mellows during simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer until the tomatoes look clear. Simmering must be long enough to soften the tomatoes and let them absorb the vinegar and spices, but not so long that they break down into mush. Watching for a translucent appearance signals that the tomato cell walls have softened and the pickle is cooked through.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, onion, pepper, mustard, allspice, clove, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, pepper, mustard, allspice, clove, 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.

More green tomato pickles recipes

Sweet 20 See all 141 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream Tomato SoupCream Tomato Soup28 recipes