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Pickled Green Tomatoes

A pickled green tomato dish with onions, peppers, salt, sugar, cloves, allspice, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Pickled Green Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the tomatoes and mix them with salt.

  2. Let them sit overnight.

  3. In the morning, drain off the water and discard it.

Pickle

  1. Combine all ingredients in a pot and bring to a boil.

  2. Store the mixture for later use.

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. Clove + allspicetop 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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 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 main body of the pickle; salting draws out water so they stay firmer.
Small white onions
Add savory bulk and a mild sweetness as they cook in the pickling mixture.
Green peppers
Contribute crisp texture and a fresh, grassy flavor to the pickle.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the salt and the spices.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and flavor to the pickling liquid.
Cloves
Add a strong, warm aroma that flavors the pickle.

The step that matters

Drain off the salted water in the morning. Salt pulls liquid out of the tomatoes overnight. Discarding that liquid keeps the pickle from becoming watery and diluted, and helps the tomatoes stay firm when cooked.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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