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Chopped Tomato Pickles

Pickled chopped green tomatoes with cabbage, spices, 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 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 Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sprinkle the chopped tomatoes with salt.

  2. Let the tomatoes stand overnight.

  3. Chop the cabbage.

Combine and cover

  1. Combine the cabbage with the grated horseradish, spices, sugar, ground mustard, and whole red pepper in a large bowl. Mix all ingredients thoroughly.

  2. Cover the mixture with cold cider vinegar.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 release moisture when salted.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the tomatoes, firming them and helping preserve the pickle.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and horseradish.
Cold cider vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tang.
Grated horseradish
Adds sharp, pungent heat that gives the pickle its bite.
Cabbage
Adds crisp texture and bulk to the mixture.

The step that matters

Draining the salted tomatoes overnight. Salt pulls water out of the tomatoes through osmosis. Leaving them to stand lets enough moisture drain so the finished pickle stays firm rather than watery and diluted in its vinegar cover.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, horseradish, cinnamon, clove, allspice, ginger, pepper):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, horseradish, cinnamon, clove, allspice, ginger, pepper. 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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