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Chopped Pickles

A pickled mixture of chopped cabbage, green tomatoes, onions, green peppers, spices, sugar, turmeric, celery seed, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chopped Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sprinkle salt over the green tomatoes and let them stand for a while.

  2. Drain off the water from the tomatoes.

Cook

  1. Combine the tomatoes with cabbage, onions, green peppers, mustard, ginger, cloves, mace, cinnamon, sugar, turmeric, and celery seed, mix well and cover with vinegar.

  2. Boil slowly until done.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  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
Provide the bulk of the pickle and release water when salted, firming the texture.
Cabbage
Adds crunch and body so the pickle keeps some texture after cooking.
Onions
Add savory depth and bulk to the mix as it cooks down.
Sugar
Sweetens the pickle and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickled vegetables.
Ground mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that stands up to the sweetness.

The step that matters

Boil slowly until done. Cooking gently lets the vegetables soften and absorb the vinegar and spices evenly. Boiling too hard can break the pieces down into mush and scorch the sugar on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, tomato, onion, pepper, mustard, ginger, clove):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, tomato, onion, pepper, mustard, ginger, clove. 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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