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Chow-chow

A preserved vegetable relish made with tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage, onions, mustard, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage, and onions into small pieces.

  2. Pack them down in salt overnight.

  3. The next morning, drain them and soak in a mixture of vinegar and water (half and half) for one to two days.

  4. Drain again and mix in the spices well.

Scald and finish

  1. Boil 1½ gallons of good vinegar and pour it over the mixture for three mornings, using the same vinegar each time after heating.

  2. Before scalding for the last time, add the two boxes of mustard and ½ pint of olive oil.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Horseradish + cucumbertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

  4. Horseradish + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Mustard + cucumbertop 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

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk and body of the relish once chopped and salted.
Cabbage
Adds crisp texture and bulk that holds up through repeated scalding.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the relish and sharpens its flavour.
Mustard
Adds pungent heat and flavour that mellows during soaking and scalding.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma as they soften in the brine and vinegar.
Olive oil
Adds fat and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the relish.

The step that matters

Salting overnight. Salt draws water out of the chopped vegetables by osmosis. If they are not drained well after salting and soaking, excess water dilutes the vinegar and the relish can become watery and less crisp.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against horseradish, cabbage, mustard, onion, celery, cucumber, pepper. 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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