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Chow Chow

A pickled relish made from pickles, onions, green tomatoes, green beans, cauliflower, green peppers, vinegar, sugar, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Green beans and cauliflower work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 75 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut pickles, onions, green tomatoes, green beans, cauliflower, and green peppers into small pieces.

  2. Soak the chopped vegetables in salt water overnight.

Cook and bottle

  1. In the morning, boil the soaked vegetables in 2 quarts of vinegar.

  2. Pour off the vinegar and prepare the sauce with 1 quart of vinegar, sugar, and prepared mustard.

  3. Bring the sauce to a boil, then add the vegetables and mix well.

  4. Bottle the mixture while it is still hot.

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. Green beans + cauliflowertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together75 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Tomato + green beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together113 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Cauliflower + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,113 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pickles
Provide the tangy, briny flavor base of the relish.
Onions
Add bulk, sharp flavor, and sweetness when cooked down.
Green tomatoes
Contribute tartness and body to the chopped vegetable mixture.
Cauliflower
Adds crunchy texture and bulk to the relish.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that defines the sauce.

The step that matters

Soaking the chopped vegetables overnight. Salting and soaking draws water out of the vegetables, so they stay crisp rather than turning soft and watery during cooking and bottling.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, green beans, cauliflower, pepper, vinegar, sauce, sugar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, green beans, cauliflower, pepper, vinegar, sauce, 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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