Name: Chow Chow
Ingredients: 1 cucumber, diced; 1 cup cauliflower florets; 1 onion, diced; ½ cup mustard; ½ cup vinegar; various condiments to taste

Why it works: Cucumber and cauliflower 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Combine the diced cucumber, cauliflower florets, and diced onion in a bowl.
In a separate bowl, mix the mustard and vinegar.
Pour the mustard mixture over the vegetables.

Season and store

Add condiments to taste and mix well.
Store in a covered container to retain flavor and color.

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.

Cucumber + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together584 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Cauliflower + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together687 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,281 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,259 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumber: Adds moisture and crisp, refreshing bulk to the salad.
Cauliflower: Provides firm texture and bulk that holds up well against the dressing.
Onion: Contributes sharp aroma and savory bite to the vegetables.
Mustard: Gives sharp, pungent flavor and helps bind the dressing to the vegetables.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens flavor and balances the mustard's sharpness.

Swap the onion

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

Horseradishfits better
Radishfits better
Broccolifits better
Onionthe original

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