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Salad

Green Tomato Pickle

A pickled mixture of sliced tomatoes, onions, garlic, green peppers, spices, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Green Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sprinkle the sliced tomatoes, onions, garlic, and green peppers with salt.

  2. Let the mixture sit overnight.

  3. Drain the mixture well.

Cook

  1. In a kettle, layer the vegetables with allspice, ginger, mace, and turmeric.

  2. Add sugar and enough vinegar to cover the mixture.

  3. Boil until tender.

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 + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the pickle and soften into tender pieces during boiling.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the vegetables overnight, firming them and concentrating flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and spices.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tang.
Onions
Add savory body and sweetness as they cook down into the mixture.
Ground ginger
Contributes warm, pungent aroma that flavors the pickle.

The step that matters

Drain the salted mixture well. Salt draws out water overnight; if the vegetables are not drained well, the excess liquid dilutes the vinegar and sugar syrup, weakening flavor and preservation and making the pickle watery.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, onion, garlic, pepper, allspice, ginger, turmeric):

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Corianderfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, garlic, pepper, allspice, ginger, turmeric. 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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