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Dessert

Green-tomato Pie

A pie made with sliced green tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, butter, allspice, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Green-tomato Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Prepare the bottom crust and place the sliced tomatoes in it.

Add the filling

  1. Add vinegar, sugar, and butter to the tomatoes.

  2. Sprinkle allspice and flour over the mixture.

Bake

  1. Cover with the top crust and bake until golden.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Allspice + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Tomato + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together670 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 filling and provide its tart, fresh body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and sharpens the tomatoes' tartness.
Sugar
Balances the vinegar's sharpness and adds sweetness to the filling.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer mouthfeel in the baked filling.
Flour
Thickens the juices released by the tomatoes as the pie bakes.

The step that matters

Sprinkle the flour evenly over the tomatoes. Flour is a starch that thickens the juices as they heat. If it clumps or lands in one spot, some areas stay watery or pasty, so an even dusting lets the filling set uniformly.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, butter, allspice, flour):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, butter, allspice, flour. 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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