Name: Green Tomato Sweet Pickle
Ingredients: green tomatoes; coarse sea salt; water; 1/2 pound sugar; spices (ginger, pepper, mace); vinegar

Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Green Tomato Sweet Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Slice the tomatoes and soak them in brine for 2 days or sprinkle lightly with salt.
Rinse the tomatoes in clear water until the salt is removed.
Boil the tomatoes in alum-water for 20 minutes, then rinse in clear water until the roughness is gone.
Combine 1/2 pound of sugar with the tomatoes and season with spices.
Add enough vinegar to cover the pickles and boil for 20 to 30 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.

Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,800 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + gingertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,887 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ginger + macetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,152 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

Swap the mace

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

Corianderfits better
Cinnamonfits better
Cardamomfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, ginger, pepper, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.