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Green Tomato Pickle

A pickle made by layering sliced green tomatoes and onions with salt, then brining with vinegar, spices, and sugar, boiled for half an hour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the green tomatoes and onions, layer them in a bowl, and sprinkle with coarse sea salt. Let them stand overnight.

  2. The next day, drain the mixture well and place it in a kettle.

Cook

  1. Cover with vinegar and add mixed spice, brown sugar, mustard, celery seed, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Boil for half an hour.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 of the pickle and firm texture once salted and cooked.
Onions
Add savory flavor and body that softens as the pickle cooks.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the tomatoes and onions, firming them and concentrating flavor.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that preserves and balances the sweetness.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses note that offsets the acidity.

The step that matters

Draining after the overnight salting. Salt draws out water from the tomatoes and onions; draining them well keeps excess liquid from diluting the vinegar and sugar syrup, so the pickle sets properly and tastes concentrated rather than watery.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, vinegar, sugar, mustard, celery, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, sugar, mustard, celery, pepper. 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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