Name: Green Tomato Pickle
Ingredients: 2 pints vinegar; 2 tablespoons salt; 1 tablespoon whole cloves; 1 tablespoon whole allspice; 1 tablespoon celery seed; 1 tablespoon mustard seed; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper; 2 cups brown sugar; green tomatoes, sliced very thin

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

In a large pot, combine vinegar, brown sugar, and spices.
Bring the mixture to a boil.
Add the sliced green tomatoes and let them scald.

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.

Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,928 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,377 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the tomato

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

Horseradishfits better
Capsicumfits better
Shallotfits better
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, clove, allspice, celery, mustard, pepper, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.