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Green Tomato Pickles

Pickled green tomatoes with onion, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,279 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the green tomatoes and onion into large thick pieces.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and let stand overnight.

  3. Press out the juice and season with red pepper, black pepper, mustard seed, turmeric, and brown sugar.

Cook and seal

  1. Cover with strong vinegar and cook for fifteen minutes.

  2. Put the pickles in bottles and seal.

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. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 body and bulk of the pickle, holding their shape while cooking.
Onion
Adds savory depth and aroma as it softens in the vinegar.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out juice from the tomatoes and onion, firming the pieces for pickling.
Brown sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Strong vinegar
Acidifies the pickle, providing the sharp tang that preserves and flavors it.

The step that matters

Overnight salting and pressing out the juice. Salt draws water out of the tomato and onion pieces through osmosis. Pressing off this liquid keeps the pickle firm and stops excess water from diluting the vinegar, so the brine stays strong and the texture stays crisp rather than soggy.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, pepper, mustard, turmeric, sugar, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, mustard, turmeric, sugar, vinegar. 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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