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French Pickle

A pickled green tomato relish made with salt, vinegar, sugar, mustard, spices, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

French Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Slice the green tomatoes, sprinkle with salt, and leave overnight.

Cook

  1. Drain the tomatoes, add water and vinegar, and boil for 15 minutes.

  2. Drain again, then add vinegar, brown sugar, mustard seed, allspice, ginger, mustard, cloves, and cinnamon. Mix well and boil for another 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. Allspice + clovetop 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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 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
Provide the main body of the pickle, softening during brining and boiling.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the sliced tomatoes, firming them before pickling.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth that balances the sharp vinegar.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, mustard, allspice, ginger, 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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