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Green Tomato Pickle

Pickled green tomatoes with onions, mustard, cloves, and cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the green tomatoes and sprinkle salt over each layer.

  2. Let the tomatoes stand for one day and night.

Pack and cook

  1. In a large kettle, layer the salted tomatoes and sliced onions until full.

  2. Cover with cider vinegar and add yellow mustard, mustard seed, and whole cloves.

  3. Boil for 20 minutes and then put hot into jars.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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
Form the bulk of the pickle and give it its firm, tart body.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the tomatoes, firming them and preparing them to absorb the vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp flavor.
Yellow mustard
Adds pungent, tangy flavor and aroma to the pickling liquid.
Mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, slightly nutty bite and aroma as it infuses the vinegar.

The step that matters

Salting and standing the tomatoes. Salt must be spread evenly over every layer, and the tomatoes need the full day and night to draw out water. This firms the slices so they stay crisp rather than turning soft and watery in the hot vinegar.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, cider, vinegar, mustard, clove):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, cider, vinegar, mustard, 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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