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Green Tomato Pickles

Pickled green tomatoes and onions in a vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Salt and drain

  1. Sprinkle the sliced tomatoes and chopped onions with salt.

  2. Let the tomatoes and onions stand overnight.

  3. Drain the tomatoes and onions.

Boil and drain

  1. Boil them for 15 minutes in 2 quarts of boiling water and 1 quart of vinegar.

  2. Drain the tomatoes and onions again.

Make the pickle

  1. Prepare the pickle with the remaining vinegar and spices.

  2. Add the tomatoes and onions to the pickle.

  3. Boil for 2 hours, stirring frequently to prevent scorching.

Jar and seal

  1. Put the mixture into jars while hot.

  2. Ensure the vinegar covers the pickles well.

  3. Close the jars.

  4. Set the jars aside.

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 + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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 absorb the brine's flavour as they cook.
White onions
Add sharpness and aroma that mellow during long simmering.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and body to the syrupy pickling liquid.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tang.
Sea salt
Draws water out of the tomatoes and onions, firming them before cooking.

The step that matters

Boil for 2 hours, stirring frequently. Long simmering with sugar and vinegar thickens the liquid, but the sugar can scorch on the bottom of the pan. Frequent stirring prevents burnt flavour and sticking.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, sugar, pepper, cider, vinegar, tomato. 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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