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French Pickle

A pickled green tomato and onion relish with vinegar, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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. Mix sliced green tomatoes and onions with salt and let stand overnight.

  2. Drain the mixture the next day and boil it in vinegar and water for 15 minutes, then drain again.

Make the spiced syrup and pickle

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar, brown sugar, mustard seed, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, ground mustard, and ginger.

  2. Boil the mixture for 15 minutes and pour it over the tomatoes.

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. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  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 main body of the pickle, firm enough to hold their shape after brining and boiling.
Salt
Draws moisture out of the tomatoes and onions overnight, firming them for pickling.
Vinegar
Supplies the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and body to the spiced syrup, balancing the sharp vinegar.
Onions
Add savory flavor and a soft texture that mellows during boiling.
White mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, pungent flavor to the spiced syrup.

The step that matters

Draining after the overnight salting. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes and onions. Draining them well before boiling keeps the pickling liquid from being diluted and watery, so the pickle stays firm and concentrated.

Swap the onion

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

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

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