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Chopped Pickle

A pickled mixture of cabbage, green tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, peppers, spices, sugar, and cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Chopped Pickle

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 ↓

Chopped Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Salt and press

  1. Sprinkle 4 tablespoons of salt over each gallon of vegetables and let them stand separately for 12 hours.

  2. Press the vegetables dry with your hands.

Cook

  1. In a large pot, mix all the vegetables with the spices and sugar.

  2. Cover the mixture with cider vinegar and boil until tender.

  3. Bruise the cloves and cinnamon bark or break them into small pieces before adding.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Clove + allspicetop 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. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Cider vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its tang.
Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the pickle and softens into a tender texture when boiled.
Green tomatoes
Adds bulk and a firm, tart body that softens during the boil.
Black mustard seeds
Contributes sharp, pungent aroma that infuses into the vinegar as it cooks.
White mustard seeds
Adds milder pungency and aroma to the spiced vinegar.

The step that matters

Press the vegetables dry. Salted vegetables release a lot of water. If they are not pressed dry, the extra liquid dilutes the vinegar and spices, weakening both flavour and preservation.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, tomato, cucumber, pepper, clove, allspice, cinnamon):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, tomato, cucumber, pepper, clove, allspice, 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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