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Green Tomato Pickle

A pickled green tomato relish with onions, mustard, and spices, preserved in strong vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Slice the green tomatoes thinly and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

  2. Let the tomatoes stand for 3 to 4 hours.

  3. Press the brine water from the tomatoes.

Cook

  1. In a kettle, layer the tomatoes with onions, mustard, and spices alternately.

  2. Cover the mixture with strong vinegar and boil until soft.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 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
Provide the main bulk of the pickle, softening as they cook in vinegar.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and body as they soften into the pickle.
Strong vinegar
Supplies acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp flavor.
Brown sugar
Balances the vinegar's sharpness with sweetness and helps form a thick, rich texture.
Mustard seed
Contributes pungent, sharp flavor that deepens during long simmering.

The step that matters

Press the brine water from the tomatoes. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes; if that liquid is not pressed away, it dilutes the vinegar and can leave the pickle watery and less firm.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, mustard, clove, allspice, pepper, ginger, turmeric):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, mustard, clove, allspice, pepper, ginger, turmeric. 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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