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Green Tomato Pickle

A pickled green tomato dish seasoned with mustard, spices, and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Salt and drain the tomatoes

  1. Slice the tomatoes thin and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

  2. Let them stand overnight.

  3. Drain the tomatoes through a colander.

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel the onions.

  2. Slice the onions.

Layer and spice

  1. In a kettle, layer the tomatoes and onions.

  2. Add mustard seed and spices.

  3. Repeat layering and adding until all ingredients are used.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 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
Make up the bulk of the pickle, and salting draws out their water so they stay firmer.
White onions
Add savory bulk and a sharp, aromatic flavor that mellows during pickling.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the tomatoes and spices.
Yellow mustard seed
Contributes a pungent, sharp flavor that deepens as the pickle sits.

The step that matters

Salting and draining the tomatoes overnight. Salt draws water out of the sliced tomatoes through osmosis. Draining well removes that liquid, so the pickle stays firmer and the brine is not diluted.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, mustard, pepper, clove, allspice, 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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