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
Boil a good brine and pour it over the cauliflower.
Let the cauliflower stand in the brine overnight.
In the morning, boil all the vegetables for 15 minutes in sugar and vinegar.
Remove the vegetables and drain them.
Make the sauce and pack
Heat the sugar and vinegar to a boil.
Mix the mustard, flour, and turmeric into a paste with a little vinegar. Add the mustard paste to the boiling sugar and vinegar mixture.
Pack the vegetables into cans.
Pour the boiling mixture over the packed vegetables, ensuring they are all covered.
Seal the cans.
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.
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Cucumber + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together584 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Cauliflower + turmerictop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together514 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Cauliflower + mustardtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together687 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Turmeric + mustardtop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,279 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked 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
- Cauliflower
- Stays firm and crisp through the brining and boiling, giving the pickle its chunky bite.
- Vinegar
- Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle, and dissolves the sugar into the brine.
- Sugar
- Balances the sharp vinegar with sweetness and helps the syrup coat the vegetables.
- English mustard
- Adds pungent heat and flavor that defines the classic chow-chow taste.
- Flour
- Thickens the boiling vinegar and sugar mixture into a smooth, coating sauce.
- Turmeric
- Gives the pickle its bright yellow color and an earthy, aromatic flavor.
The step that matters
Mixing the mustard paste into the flour and turmeric. The paste must be smooth and fully mixed with a little vinegar before it goes into the boiling liquid. Lumps of flour or mustard stay raw and can ruin the texture of the sauce.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, cauliflower, turmeric, sugar, flour, mustard, vinegar):
- Horseradishfits better
- Radishfits better
- Broccolifits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cauliflower, turmeric, sugar, flour, mustard, 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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