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French Pickle

A pickled green tomato recipe using salt, water, vinegar, sugar, and spices.

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 and sprinkle with salt.

  2. Leave the tomatoes overnight.

  3. Drain the tomatoes.

Cook and pickle

  1. Add water and vinegar, then boil for 15 minutes.

  2. Drain again.

  3. Add vinegar, brown sugar, and all the spices, and mix well.

  4. 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, firm enough to hold shape after salting and boiling.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the sliced tomatoes, firming them before the vinegar cooking.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the tomatoes and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent flavor to the pickling liquid.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma to the spiced pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Salting and draining the tomatoes overnight. Salt draws water out of the sliced tomatoes through osmosis. Draining well removes that liquid so the pickle stays firm and the vinegar mixture is not diluted.

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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