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Sauce

Tomato Mustard

A pickled tomato and mustard condiment made with green tomatoes, onions, celery, vinegar, mustard, brown sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard 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 ↓

Tomato Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, onions, and celery finely.

  2. Combine 1 quart of vinegar with the chopped vegetables in a crock.

Cook and seal

  1. Add 3 pints of vinegar, mustard, brown sugar, and salt.

  2. Stir all ingredients together and bring to a boil.

  3. Boil for 30 minutes, then let cool before sealing.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 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 bulk of the relish and its tart, fresh body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the mixture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Mustard
Contributes pungent, sharp flavor that defines the relish.
Onions
Add savory depth and aromatic sweetness as they cook down.

The step that matters

Boil for 30 minutes, then let cool before sealing. The mixture must simmer long enough to soften the vegetables and blend the vinegar and sugar. Sealing while hot can cause the jars to lose their seal, so cooling first matters.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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