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Preserve

Green Tomato Pickle

A pickled mixture of green tomatoes, chili pepper, onions, cabbage, celery, horseradish, mustard seed, spices, salt, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop all vegetables finely.

  2. Sprinkle coarse sea salt over the chopped vegetables in layers.

  3. Let the mixture stand overnight.

  4. Drain off excess liquid.

Pickle and cook

  1. Cover the vegetables with vinegar and mix well.

  2. Cook until tender.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  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 main bulk and tart flavor of the pickle.
Chili pepper
Adds heat and pungency to the pickle.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they soften during cooking.
Cabbage
Contributes bulk and a crisp-tender texture after salting and cooking.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent flavor that deepens during cooking.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its tang.

The step that matters

Salting and draining overnight. Salt draws water out of the chopped vegetables by osmosis, so draining off the liquid concentrates flavor and keeps the pickle from becoming watery. Skipping or shortening this rest leaves excess moisture in the final pickle.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, onion, cabbage, celery, horseradish, mustard, 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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