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Mustard Pickle or Chow Chow

A pickled relish of cucumbers, onions, beans, tomatoes, cauliflower, peppers, mustard, sugar, flour, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Mustard Pickle or Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Combine and cook

  1. Combine all vegetables in a large pot with vinegar, mustard, brown sugar, and flour.

  2. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly to prevent burning.

Soak

  1. Soak large cucumbers and tomatoes in weak brine for 24 hours.

Scald and finish

  1. Scald the pickles in the same brine water.

  2. Remove pickles from brine and mix with the prepared paste.

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. Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Beans + cauliflowertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, 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

Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that gives the pickle its tang and helps preserve it.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Flour
Thickens the vinegar mixture into a smooth paste that coats the vegetables.
Mustard
Contributes the pungent, sharp flavor characteristic of mustard pickles.

The step that matters

Stir constantly while bringing to a boil. The flour and brown sugar thicken and can scorch on the bottom of the pot as they heat. Constant stirring keeps the mixture moving and prevents burning.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, beans, tomato, cauliflower, pepper, mustard, 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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