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Chow-Chow

A pickled vegetable mixture of cucumbers, tomatoes, cauliflower, onions, and peppers in a seasoned brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 584 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Chow-Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut large cucumbers into small cubes and slice the tomatoes.

  2. Separate the cauliflower and cut the peppers coarsely.

  3. Combine cucumbers, tomatoes, cauliflower, onions, and peppers in a brine made of 1 cup salt and 1 gallon water for 24 hours.

  4. Scald the vegetables in the same brine and then drain.

Make the mustard sauce and finish

  1. In a pot, mix ground mustard, turmeric, flour, sugar, and vinegar, then scald the mixture.

  2. Stir until smooth and pour over the pickles.

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. Cucumber + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Cauliflower + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together514 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Cauliflower + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 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

Ground mustard
Provides the sharp, pungent flavor that defines the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the vinegar sauce so it coats the vegetables.
Vinegar
Acidifies the pickles and carries the sauce, preserving the vegetables.
Sugar
Balances the sharp acidity and mustard with sweetness.
Turmeric
Gives the pickles and sauce their yellow color and mild earthy aroma.
Cucumbers
Supply the crisp, firm texture of the pickles.

The step that matters

Stir the mustard sauce until smooth. Flour clumps easily when mixed into hot liquid. Mixing the dry ingredients with vinegar first and stirring constantly while scalding keeps the sauce smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, tomato, cauliflower, pepper, mustard, turmeric, flour):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, tomato, cauliflower, pepper, mustard, turmeric, flour. 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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