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Chopped Tomato Pickle

A pickle of chopped green tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, and spices, preserved in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chopped Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, onions, and bell peppers.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and let stand for 24 hours.

  3. Drain and place in a bag to drip overnight.

  4. Soak in weak vinegar for 24 hours, then drain again.

Make the pickle

  1. In a porcelain kettle, combine the vegetables with mustard, mustard seed, celery seed, horseradish, turmeric, and sugar.

  2. Pour in cider vinegar and boil for 15 minutes, stirring constantly to mix well.

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 + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Horseradish + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together437 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 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
Form the bulk of the pickle and give it its main body once cooked.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, firming them and concentrating their flavour.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard with sweetness.
White mustard seed
Adds pungent heat and a sharp, seeded bite to the pickle.
Horseradish
Contributes a sharp, pungent heat that carries through the cooked pickle.

The step that matters

Boil for 15 minutes while stirring constantly. The vegetables and vinegar can scorch on the bottom of the kettle if not stirred, and the boil must be sustained to cook the mixture through and blend the flavours evenly.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, pepper, vinegar, mustard, celery, horseradish, turmeric):

  1. Broccolifits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, vinegar, mustard, celery, horseradish, 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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