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Green Tomato Pickle

A pickle made from green tomatoes, onions, mustard, spices, brown sugar, and 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, then let them stand for 3 to 4 hours.

  2. Press the briny water from the tomatoes.

Cook the pickle

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

  2. Cover the mixture with strong vinegar and bring to a 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
Forms the bulk of the pickle; salting draws out moisture so the slices firm up.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory body that softens into the pickle as it cooks.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the pickle and helps preserve it.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar.
Mustard seed
Contributes pungency and aroma that carry through the cooked pickle.

The step that matters

Pressing out the briny water. Salt draws liquid out of the tomatoes. If that brine is not pressed off, it dilutes the vinegar and the pickle turns watery and loose.

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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