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To Pickle Tomatoes

A method for pickling green tomatoes in a vinegar brine with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,076 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

To Pickle Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak green tomatoes in salt and water for 24 hours.

  2. Remove tomatoes, wipe them dry, and place them in a jar.

Pickle

  1. Boil vinegar with mace, sliced ginger, long peppers, and garlic.

  2. Pour the hot vinegar over the tomatoes.

  3. Let the tomatoes stand for 2 weeks.

  4. Reboil the vinegar and pour it over the tomatoes again.

  5. Seal the jar with a bladder and store for use.

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. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Ginger + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 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 main body of the pickle, softening and taking on the flavour of the brine.
Vinegar
Supplies the acidity that preserves the tomatoes and gives the pickle its sharp taste.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that infuses into the hot vinegar and flavours the tomatoes.
Sliced ginger
Contributes warm, aromatic flavour to the vinegar brine.

The step that matters

Reboil the vinegar before the second pour. Heating the vinegar again helps it fully penetrate and keeps the brine hot enough to work on the tomatoes, supporting safe, stable preservation.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Corianderfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Basilfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, ginger, pepper, garlic. 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.

More pickled tomatoes recipes

Sweet 15French 10Spanish 10Spiced 4 See all 75 →

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