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Chopped Pickles

A pickled mixture of chopped cabbage, onions, green tomatoes, and green peppers seasoned with spices, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chopped Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the cabbage, onions, green tomatoes, and green peppers finely.

  2. Sprinkle coarse sea salt over the tomatoes and let them stand for a while.

  3. Drain off the water from the tomatoes.

Combine and cook

  1. Combine the tomatoes with the other ingredients.

  2. Add the ground mustard, powdered ginger, cloves, mace, cinnamon, sugar, turmeric powder, and celery seed and mix well.

  3. Cover with vinegar.

  4. Boil slowly until done.

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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  5. Onion + mustardtop 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
Provide the bulk and tart flavor of the pickle, and their water is drawn out by salt.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a crisp texture that holds up through slow cooking.
Onions
Contribute savory depth and aroma as they soften in the vinegar.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the mixture and gives it its sharp tang.
Ground mustard
Adds pungent, sharp flavor that deepens the spiced character of the pickle.

The step that matters

Drain off the water from the tomatoes. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes; if that liquid is not drained, the pickle becomes watery and dilutes the vinegar and spices, weakening both texture and flavor.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, onion, tomato, pepper, mustard, ginger, clove):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, onion, tomato, pepper, mustard, ginger, clove. 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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