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Green Tomato Pickles

Pickled green tomatoes with onions, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sprinkle the sliced onions and tomatoes with salt and let them stand overnight.

  2. Drain the mixture, add water and vinegar, and boil for 10 minutes.

  3. Drain again and discard the liquid.

Cook the pickles

  1. Add sugar, allspice, vinegar, ginger, cayenne pepper, mustard, cinnamon, and cloves to the tomatoes.

  2. Boil the mixture for 15 minutes.

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. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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
Form the bulk of the pickle and soften as they cook, taking on the spiced vinegar.
Onions
Add savory body and sweetness that mellows during the long salting and boiling.
Sea salt
Draws water out of the tomatoes and onions overnight, firming them for pickling.
Sugar
Balances the sharp vinegar and adds sweetness to the pickle.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tang.

The step that matters

Draining after the overnight salting. Salt draws out water, and the mixture must be drained and rinsed of excess salt before boiling. Otherwise the pickle can taste harshly salty and the vegetables may stay soggy rather than firm.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, vinegar, sugar, allspice, ginger, pepper, mustard):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, sugar, allspice, ginger, pepper, 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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