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Green Tomato Sweet Pickle

A sweet pickle made from green tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, spices, and mustard seed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Green Tomato Sweet Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Peel and slice the tomatoes, then sprinkle with salt and let stand overnight.

  2. In the morning, drain the tomatoes.

  3. Boil the tomatoes in water and vinegar for 2-3 minutes, then drain again.

Make the syrup and pickle

  1. Make a syrup by boiling vinegar, brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves, ground spice, and mustard seed for 15 minutes.

  2. Pour the hot syrup over the tomatoes.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Form the main body of the pickle, becoming tender after salting and boiling.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the tomatoes, firming them before the pickling liquid is added.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses depth that balances the sharp vinegar.
White mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, pungent flavour to the spiced syrup.

The step that matters

Draining after the salt rest. Salt draws out a large amount of liquid overnight. Draining well and then boiling briefly firms the tomatoes so they hold their shape rather than turning limp in the syrup.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, clove, mustard. 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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