Name: Chow-chow
Ingredients: 4 onions; 2 lbs brown sugar; 2 pints vinegar; 2 tablespoons black pepper; 2 tablespoons allspice; 2 tablespoons celery seed; ½ pint mustard seed; 1 tablespoon ground mustard

Why it works: Celery and mustard 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

Chop the onions and soak them with the cabbage in a strong saltwater solution for 2 hours.
In a large pot, combine the soaked onions, cabbage, vinegar, brown sugar, and spices.
Boil the mixture until a syrup forms.

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.

Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,928 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,259 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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, pepper, allspice, celery, mustard):

Horseradishfits better
Capsicumfits better
Radishfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, pepper, allspice, celery, mustard. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.