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Chow-chow or Mustard Pickles

A pickled vegetable mixture of cauliflower, cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, and peppers in a mustard-flour-sugar vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and cucumber 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 or Mustard Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Break the cauliflower into small florets and cut the peppers into bits.

  2. Combine all ingredients in a wooden tub or stone jar and cover with a brine made from salt and cold water.

  3. Let the mixture stand for 24 hours.

  4. After 24 hours, boil the mixture until thoroughly scalded, then drain off the brine.

Make the dressing and pack

  1. Mix ground mustard and flour into a paste with a little vinegar.

  2. Add sugar and stir into the vinegar.

  3. Pour the mixture into a preserving kettle and stir constantly until it boils.

  4. Add the pickles and boil again.

  5. Pack the pickles into jars.

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. Cauliflower + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. 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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Provides the firm, crisp bite that holds its texture in the pickle.
Ground mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that gives the pickle its characteristic taste.
Flour
Thickens the mustard paste so the dressing becomes smooth and coats the vegetables.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their tang.

The step that matters

Stirring the mustard paste into the vinegar before boiling. Flour and mustard must be smoothly blended into a paste before adding to the liquid, because lumps form if they are added dry or unevenly. Stirring constantly while it comes to a boil keeps the flour from settling and scorching on the bottom, so the dressing thickens evenly.

Swap the onion

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

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

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