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Green Tomato Pickle

A pickle made from green tomatoes, peppers, onions, salt, spices, and vinegar, boiled and left to sit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Green Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the vegetables

  1. Slice the green tomatoes, green peppers, and onions.

  2. Layer the slices with salt in a bowl and let stand overnight.

Cook

  1. The next day, drain the water and place the vegetables in a kettle.

  2. Add ground cloves, allspice, and cinnamon.

  3. Cover with vinegar and boil until soft.

Seal and rest

  1. Seal tightly and let sit for three days before eating.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 soften into a tender, chunky texture when boiled.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they cook down in the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that flavors the pickle and helps preserve it.
Ground cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavor.
Cinnamon
Contributes sweet, warm aroma and flavor.

The step that matters

Drain the vegetables after salting. Salt draws water out of the vegetables. Pouring off that liquid before cooking keeps the pickle from diluting the vinegar and helps the vegetables stay firm rather than watery.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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