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Piccalilli or Chow-chow

Piccalilli is a pickled green tomato relish with onions, celery, spices, brown sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Piccalilli or Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop or slice the tomatoes and sprinkle the salt over them. Let stand overnight.

  2. Drain off the water.

  3. Chop the onions and celery.

Cook

  1. Place the tomatoes, onions, and celery in a porcelain-lined kettle. Sprinkle with brown sugar.

  2. Tie the spices in a bag. Add the spice bag and vinegar.

  3. Cook slowly all day.

  4. Put the mixture in jars or an earthen crock.

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. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  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

Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the pickle and release water when salted, which softens their texture.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the tomatoes through osmosis, firming and concentrating the vegetables.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharp acidity of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tang.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour that carries through the long cooking.

The step that matters

Cook slowly all day. Long, gentle cooking lets the vegetables soften and the spices and vinegar blend into the sugar. Too much heat can scorch the sugar and sticking on the bottom of the kettle, so the mixture should be stirred and kept at a low simmer.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, sugar, onion, celery, cinnamon, allspice, mustard):

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, onion, celery, cinnamon, allspice, mustard. 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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