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Green Tomato Sweet Pickles

A pickled green tomato and onion relish flavored with vinegar, sugar, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, mustard seed, and green peppers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 Sweet Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine sliced green tomatoes and onions in a bowl, sprinkle with salt, and mix thoroughly.

  2. Let the mixture sit overnight.

  3. In the morning, pour off the liquid and discard it.

Make the pickle

  1. Add water and vinegar to the tomatoes and onions, then boil for 20 minutes.

  2. Drain the mixture and discard the liquid.

  3. In a pot, combine 3 pints of vinegar, sugar, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, mustard seed, and chopped green peppers.

  4. Boil the mixture for 1 to 2 hours.

Seal

  1. Seal the pickles in jars.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  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
Make up the bulk of the pickle and give its firm, tart body.
Onions
Add savory flavor and aroma that mellows during the long simmer.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the pickle's tang.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Green peppers
Contribute fresh, vegetal flavor and texture to the pickle.
Mustard seed
Adds a pungent, warm aroma to the spiced vinegar.

The step that matters

Salting and draining overnight. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes and onions through osmosis, so pouring off that liquid removes excess moisture and leaves the pieces firmer. Discarding the liquid after the 20-minute boil also keeps the pickle from becoming watery.

Swap the onion

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

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

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