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Chow Chow or Tomato Pickle

A pickled green tomato relish seasoned with mustard, pepper, ginger, cloves, onions, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chow Chow or Tomato Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice the green tomatoes and salt them.

  2. Let them sit for 24 hours.

  3. Drain the tomatoes and press them dry with a towel.

  4. Slice the onions.

Layer and cook

  1. Mix the mustard seed, ground mustard, black pepper, ground ginger, and cloves.

  2. In a kettle, layer the tomatoes, spices, and onions alternately.

  3. Cover with strong vinegar and boil for 20 minutes.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the main bulk and tart body of the pickle once salted and drained.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth that balances the sharp vinegar.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent heat and a crisp, sharp bite when cooked in vinegar.
Ground mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor and helps thicken the pickling liquid.
Vinegar
Acidity preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sour tang.

The step that matters

Salting and resting the tomatoes. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes by osmosis. Pressing them dry afterward keeps excess moisture from diluting the vinegar and leaving the pickle watery.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, mustard, pepper, ginger, clove, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, mustard, pepper, ginger, clove, vinegar. 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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