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Spanish Pickle

A pickled mixture of green tomatoes, onions, and peppers in vinegar with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Spanish Pickle

Why it works: Ginger and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Spanish Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the onions, peppers, and tomatoes finely.

  2. Sprinkle with salt and place in a bag to drain overnight.

Make and store the pickles

  1. In a large pot, mix the vinegar, ginger root, turmeric, radish seed, celery seed, black mustard seed, white mustard seed, brown sugar, and ground mustard.

  2. Add the drained tomatoes, peppers, and onions to the pot.

  3. Simmer on the stove until thoroughly cooked.

  4. Transfer to jars for storage.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Pepper + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Turmeric + radishtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together87 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Ginger + radishtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together172 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the pickle and tart, fresh vegetable flavor once simmered.
White onions
Add sharpness and savory depth that mellows during long simmering.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tangy flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and vegetables.
Mustard seed
Contributes pungent, sharp flavor that deepens as the pickle cooks.
Turmeric
Adds a yellow color and earthy, mildly bitter flavor.

The step that matters

Draining the salted vegetables overnight. Salt draws water out of chopped vegetables by osmosis. Draining removes that liquid so the pickle stays thick and does not dilute the vinegar mixture.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, pepper, cider, vinegar, ginger, turmeric, radish):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, cider, vinegar, ginger, turmeric, radish. 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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