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Aunt C's Chow Chow

A pickled cabbage dish with onions, spices, vinegar, sugar, mustard, and olive oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Aunt C's Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice cabbage ½ inch thick and pack it in a large vessel.

  2. Cover the packed cabbage with salt and cold water strong enough to hold an egg, then add more water.

  3. Slice onions crosswise, sprinkling salt between layers.

  4. The next morning, wash the onions and cover them with fresh cold water.

  5. Drain the cabbage and chop it.

  6. In a large bowl, layer the chopped cabbage, chopped onions, turmeric, and celery seed, mixing thoroughly with your hands.

Make the spiced vinegar

  1. In a preserving kettle, combine vinegar, cinnamon, black pepper, mace, cloves, and red peppers.

  2. Boil the mixture until the vinegar is infused with spices.

  3. Add sugar to the vinegar and strain the mixture over the cabbage.

  4. Wash the kettle and transfer the mixture back, scalding until hot but not boiling, stirring frequently.

Dress and serve

  1. Mix mustard with warm water until smooth and thick.

  2. Gradually beat in olive oil and vinegar until smooth.

  3. When the cabbage cools, mix it with the mustard dressing.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 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

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the pickle and keeps a crisp, firm texture.
White onions
Add pungent flavor and moisture that blends into the pickle.
White vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and sharpens the flavor.
Sugar
Sweetness balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps bind the dressing into a thick, smooth emulsion.
Olive oil
Adds fat that gives the mustard dressing a rich, smooth body.

The step that matters

Beating in the olive oil and vinegar. Oil and vinegar separate unless added slowly while beating. Gradual addition lets the mustard hold tiny oil droplets in suspension, producing a smooth dressing instead of a greasy, split one.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, onion, vinegar, cinnamon, clove, pepper, sugar. 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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