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Chow Chow.— I

A pickled vegetable relish made with tomatoes, onions, peppers, cucumbers, cauliflower, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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.— I

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Wash the cauliflower and divide it into small pieces.

  2. Cut the peppers and tomatoes into small chunks, and leave the onions whole.

  3. Make a brine with ½ cup salt for every 2 quarts of water and soak the vegetables for 24 hours.

  4. Boil the vegetables in the brine for 15 minutes, then drain.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix the sugar, cloves, allspice, turmeric, and vinegar, and bring to a boil.

  2. Make a smooth paste with the flour and mustard using a little vinegar, then add it to the boiling mixture and cook until thickened.

Combine and seal

  1. Add the vegetables, bring to a boil again, then bottle and seal.

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. Tomato + cucumbertop 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

Flour
Thickens the vinegar sauce into a smooth, spoonable relish.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Brown sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness and depth.
Vinegar
Acidifies the mixture, providing the tang and preserving the vegetables.
Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the relish and a tart, firm texture.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and mustard paste. Flour lumps easily if added dry or without a smooth paste. Mixing it with a little vinegar first lets it disperse, and it must be stirred into the boiling mixture and cooked until thickened so the starch fully swells and the relish sets properly.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, cauliflower, pepper, cucumber, vinegar, mustard, flour. 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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