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Green Tomato Pickle

A pickle made from sliced green tomatoes, onions, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Layer sliced green tomatoes and onions in a stone jar, sprinkling each layer lightly with salt.

  2. Weight down the layers for 12 hours, then drain.

Make the pickle

  1. In a porcelain kettle, add the drained tomatoes and sprinkle with mustard seed.

  2. In a bowl, mix sugar, cinnamon, mace, ginger, allspice, black pepper, cloves, and celery seed with a little cold vinegar until smooth.

  3. Add 1 gallon of vinegar to the mixture and pour it over the tomatoes.

  4. Add strips of horseradish, then stew slowly, stirring often with a wooden spoon to prevent burning.

  5. Let cool before using.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 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
Provide the bulk of the pickle and its firm, tangy texture once cooked.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and spices.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp flavor.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent flavor and a slight crunch to the pickle.
Onions
Add savory flavor and body that soften during stewing.

The step that matters

Stew slowly and stir often. Sugar-rich mixtures scorch easily on direct heat. Slow cooking with frequent stirring keeps the sugar from burning and sticking to the kettle, which would give a bitter taste.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, mustard, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, allspice. 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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