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Chopped Pickles

Pickled green tomatoes with onions, red peppers, vinegar, sugar, mustard seed, cloves, and cinnamon.

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

Chopped Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

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

  2. Scald the chopped vegetables in enough vinegar to cover them, then drain.

Pickle

  1. In a kettle, combine the sugar, mustard seed, salt, cloves, and cinnamon.

  2. Add the drained vegetables and cover with fresh vinegar.

  3. Scald the mixture again.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  4. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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
Provide the bulk of the pickle and its firm, tart texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pickle and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Acidifies the mixture, providing the tang that preserves and flavors the pickle.
Mustard seed
Adds a pungent, slightly bitter flavor and crunch to the pickle.
Onions
Add savory depth and moisture to the chopped vegetable mixture.

The step that matters

Scald the mixture again. Scalding in vinegar softens the chopped vegetables and lets the sugar and spices penetrate, while heating the mixture helps it reach a safe, stable state for storage. Overheating can turn the vegetables mushy.

Swap the onion

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

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

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