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Bottled Chow-chow

A pickled vegetable mixture of onions, string beans, cauliflower, tomatoes, and spices in vinegar and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Goff, May Perrin, [from old catalog] ed · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Bottled Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Take fifty small pickles, two quarts of silver onions, two quarts of green string beans, one dozen green tomatoes, three heads of cauliflower; let the onions stand in brine for twelve hours, then peel.

  2. If the beans are large, break them.

  3. Slice the green tomatoes and cut up the cauliflower; let all stand in brine for twenty-four hours.

Make the mustard sauce

  1. To one gallon of vinegar, use one pound of mustard (common is the best), mix it with a little vinegar, and add it to the rest.

  2. Add one or two tablespoonfuls of oil of mustard and one tablespoonful of cayenne pepper; use more spices if preferred.

  3. Tie the spices in a white cloth, and boil in the vinegar before adding the mustard.

Pack and seal

  1. It can be put in pickle jars in alternate layers; fill three-quarters full; when filling the jars add here and there a little red and green pepper; fill up with the mustard; make air-tight.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

205Calories
3 gProtein
14 gFat
18 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 9 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Tomato1 medium (123g)22
Chili1 tsp (2.7g)8
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Mustard1 tsp (5g) yellow3
Beannot in our table0
Flowernot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Goff, May Perrin, [from old catalog] ed. 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. See the original page.

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. Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  2. Beans + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

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

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Onion + beanstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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

Silver onions
Firm vegetables that hold their crunch and add bulk to the pickle.
Green string beans
Provide crisp texture that softens only slightly in the brine and vinegar.
Cauliflower (in the method)
Adds firm, crisp pieces that absorb the mustard sauce's flavour.
Green tomatoes
Add tartness and firm texture that holds up to the vinegar.
Mustard
Gives the sauce its characteristic sharp, pungent flavour and thickens the vinegar.

The step that matters

Salting the vegetables in brine. Soaking the onions, tomatoes and cauliflower in brine draws out water, which keeps the pickle crisp and stops it from diluting the sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, vinegar, mustard, pepper, tomato):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, vinegar, mustard, pepper, tomato. 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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