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Green Tomato Pickle

A pickled green tomato recipe using brine, vinegar, sugar, ginger, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Green Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Cover sliced tomatoes with a weak brine made from 1 cup salt and 1 gallon water.

  2. Let stand overnight.

  3. Remove tomatoes from brine and rinse in cold water.

Cook and seal

  1. In a pot, combine tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, and ginger.

  2. Cook until tender but not broken.

  3. Remove from heat and add cassia buds, cinnamon, cloves, and mace.

  4. Seal in quart 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cassia + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together116 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

  5. Cassia + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together194 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Firm flesh gives the pickles a crisp-tender texture after cooking.
Sea salt
Brine draws water out of the tomatoes, firming them and seasoning them throughout.
Vinegar
Acidity preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp, tangy flavour.
Sugar
Sweetness balances the sharpness of the vinegar and rounds out the flavour.
Cassia buds
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Cook until tender but not broken. Overcooking breaks down the pectin and cell walls, so the tomato slices turn soft and fall apart. Stopping when they are just tender keeps their shape and firmness.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, ginger, cassia, cinnamon, clove, mace):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, ginger, cassia, cinnamon, clove, mace. 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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