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Chow-chow

A pickled relish of cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, onions, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sprinkle the salt over the sliced cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, onions, and red peppers.

  2. Let them stand overnight.

  3. Drain the vegetables well.

Cook

  1. Add mace, mustard seed, cloves, celery seed, turmeric, ground mustard, and horseradish to the vegetables.

  2. Cover everything with vinegar and boil for 30 minutes or until tender.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the crisp, watery vegetable base that salting firms and seasons.
Green tomatoes
Add tartness and body that holds up to long pickling.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, firming them and concentrating flavor before pickling.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp taste.
Mustard seed
Contributes sharp, pungent flavor that mellows during boiling in the vinegar.

The step that matters

Drain the vegetables well. Salted vegetables hold excess liquid, and leftover brine or water dilutes the vinegar and weakens the preserving acidity and crispness of the finished pickle.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, tomato, pepper, onion, mustard, clove, celery):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, tomato, pepper, onion, mustard, clove, celery. 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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Relish 49Pickle 25Pickles 16Tomato 9Cucumber 4Salad 3 See all 120 →

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