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Pickles and Catsup

A pickled green tomato and vegetable mixture flavored with mustard, spices, and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,645 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pickles and Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut the tomatoes, onions, and green pepper in a chopping bowl, then chop finely and place in a preserving kettle.

  2. Add salt and enough vinegar and cold water to cover the mixture.

  3. Boil for 10 minutes, then remove from heat and hang in a cloth for 2 hours.

Pack and season

  1. Transfer to a stone jar with the chopped cabbage.

  2. Cover with boiling vinegar, scald the mustard seed, and add to the jar.

  3. Mix in brown sugar, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves.

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. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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
Form the bulk of the pickle and release moisture that the salt draws out.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and body that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its tang.
Cabbage
Adds crunch and bulk, keeping the pickle firm in texture.
Mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, pungent flavour when scalded in the vinegar.

The step that matters

Hanging the vegetables in a cloth for 2 hours. Salted and boiled vegetables hold a lot of liquid. Draining them thoroughly removes excess water, which would otherwise dilute the vinegar and make the pickle soft and less likely to keep.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, cabbage, mustard, pepper, vinegar, sugar, cinnamon):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, cabbage, mustard, pepper, vinegar, sugar, 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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