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A pickled relish of cabbage, green tomato, cucumber, onion, horseradish, and spices in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. In a large bowl, mix the chopped cabbage, green tomato, cucumber, onion, and horseradish thoroughly.

  2. Layer the mixture in a pan or jar, sprinkling ground salt between layers and on top.

  3. Press down compactly, cover, and let sit for two days.

  4. On the second day, drain the chopped vegetables and squeeze them in a cloth to remove excess brine.

Make the pickle and cook

  1. Prepare the vinegar-pickle by boiling vinegar with ginger, allspice, mustard, and curry for 10 minutes.

  2. Grate the lemon, squeeze out the juice, and add both the rind and juice to the vinegar mixture without using a bag.

  3. Add the drained vegetables to the boiling vinegar mixture and cook for 30 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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Horseradish + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 relish and gives it crisp, crunchy texture.
Green tomato
Adds tart, acidic flavor and moisture to the relish.
Cucumber
Contributes crisp texture and fresh moisture to the relish.
Ground salt
Draws water out of the vegetables during the resting period, firming them and reducing excess brine.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the relish and gives it its sharp flavor.
Horseradish
Adds pungent heat that mellows as the relish cooks in the vinegar.

The step that matters

Squeezing out the brine before cooking. Salt has drawn liquid from the vegetables during the two-day rest. Squeezing out the excess brine keeps the cooked relish from becoming watery and too salty, so the vinegar flavor can come through.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, cucumber, onion, horseradish, vinegar, ginger, allspice):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, cucumber, onion, horseradish, vinegar, ginger, allspice. 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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