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Sweet Green Tomato Pickles

A pickled green tomato and onion relish made with vinegar, sugar, mustard seed, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Sweet Green Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Combine green tomatoes and sliced onions in a large bowl, sprinkle with salt, and let sit overnight.

  2. In the morning, drain the mixture and ensure it is very dry.

  3. Boil 4 quarts of vinegar with the tomatoes and onions in batches, then drain again.

Make the pickling syrup

  1. In a kettle, combine 2 quarts of vinegar, brown sugar, mustard seed, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, mustard seed, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Boil the mixture for 10 minutes.

  3. Adjust spices to taste if desired.

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. Allspice + clovetop 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. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 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 hold their shape while simmering in vinegar.
Onions
Add savory body and sweetness that softens during cooking.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Brown sugar
Balances the vinegar's sharpness with sweetness and a rich, molasses note.
Brown mustard seed
Contributes a pungent, slightly nutty heat and texture to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Drain the tomato and onion mixture until very dry. Excess moisture left from the salting dilutes the vinegar syrup and keeps the pickles from crisping and holding their texture, so the mixture must be thoroughly drained before boiling.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, sugar, mustard, allspice, clove, 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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