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Sweet Greex Tomato Pickles

Pickled green tomatoes and onions sweetened with brown sugar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Sweet Greex Tomato Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Sprinkle the sliced tomatoes and onions with salt and let them stand overnight.

  2. In the morning, drain the mixture.

  3. Boil the tomatoes and onions in 2 quarts of water and 1 quart of cider vinegar for 15 minutes, then drain again.

Make the syrup

  1. In a pot, combine 4 quarts of vinegar, 2 pounds of brown sugar, mustard seed, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, and cayenne pepper; boil for 15 minutes.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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

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

  4. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 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 pickle and absorb the surrounding sweet, spiced vinegar liquid.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it a sharp, tangy bite.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
White mustard seed
Contributes a pungent, slightly bitter flavor that stands up to the sugar and vinegar.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the tomatoes and onions, firming them before pickling.

The step that matters

Draining after the salt soak. Salt draws out a lot of liquid overnight. Draining well and then boiling in fresh water and vinegar removes excess salt and keeps the pickles firm and not overly salty.

Swap the onion

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

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

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