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Green Tomato Pickles

Pickled green tomatoes with onions, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice the tomatoes thinly and slice the onions thinly.

  2. Sprinkle the tomatoes and onions with 1-2 cups coarse sea salt.

  3. Let the salted tomatoes and onions stand overnight in a crock or enameled vessel.

  4. Tie all spices in a cheesecloth bag.

  5. Slice the lemon.

  6. Chop the red pepper pods very finely.

  7. Drain the tomatoes and onions well.

Cook and pack

  1. Add all seasoning except one pepper pod to the vinegar.

  2. Bring the vinegar to a full boil.

  3. Add the tomatoes and onions to the boiling vinegar.

  4. Cook slowly for 12-15 minutes.

  5. Stir very carefully.

  6. Remove the spice bag to prevent darkening of the product.

  7. Pack the pickles in sterilized jars.

  8. Garnish the jars with strips of the red pepper.

  9. Seal the jars immediately.

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 + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the pickle and, once salted and drained, a firm texture that holds up to cooking.
Large onions
Add sweetness and savory body that mellows during the salt cure and simmer.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and the salt.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their tang.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the tomatoes and onions, firming them and reducing the liquid in the jar.

The step that matters

Remove the spice bag after cooking. Spices left in the hot vinegar keep releasing color and flavor, which darkens the pickles and makes them taste harsher over time.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, lemon, pepper, mustard, allspice, celery. 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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