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Green Tomato Pickles

Pickled green tomatoes made with vinegar, water, sugar, mustard, spices, and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Green Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Salt the sliced green tomatoes overnight.

  2. In the morning, place the tomatoes in a kettle with 1 quart of vinegar and ½ pint of water. Bring to a boil, then drain off the liquid.

Make the pickle

  1. In a clean kettle, combine the tomatoes with 1½ pints of vinegar, ½ pint of water, 1 pint of sugar, 2 tablespoons of mustard, 1 tablespoon of cinnamon, 1 teaspoon of cloves, and 2 large onions.

  2. Cook until the mixture thickens, then jar and seal.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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; salting draws out water so they stay firm and crisp.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the tomatoes and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness to the pickle.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma as they soften in the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Cook until the mixture thickens. Cooking long enough lets the syrup reduce and thicken around the tomatoes; stopping early leaves a thin liquid, and the pickle may not keep well once jarred.

Swap the onion

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

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

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