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Salad

Chow-chow

A pickled relish made from cucumbers, green tomatoes, green peppers, cabbage, onions, mustard, spices, and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut the cucumbers into chunks without peeling them.

  2. Chop the cabbage finely.

  3. Quarter and slice the green tomatoes without peeling them.

  4. Sprinkle all the vegetables with salt.

  5. Let the vegetables stand overnight.

  6. Remove seeds from the green peppers and chop them finely.

  7. Peel the outer skin from the onions and use them whole.

  8. Soak the onions separately in salt water overnight.

  9. Soak the green peppers separately in salt water overnight.

  10. Drain the onions and peppers.

Make the relish

  1. Layer the onions and peppers in a kettle with alternating layers of seasoning.

  2. Mix the mustard with a small quantity of vinegar until smooth.

  3. Cover the mixture with good cider vinegar.

  4. Boil the mixture for 30 minutes.

  5. Taste the relish and add more salt if necessary.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + cabbagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  5. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 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

Cucumbers
Provide the crisp, bulky body of the relish once salted and drained.
Green tomatoes
Add tartness and bulk, and hold their shape through the long boil.
Cabbage
Adds crunch and bulk that survives the salting and cooking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharp vinegar and mustard.
Coleman's mustard
Gives the relish its sharp, pungent flavour and yellow colour.
Cider vinegar (in the method)
Provides the acidity that preserves the relish and gives it tang.

The step that matters

Salting and soaking the vegetables overnight. Salt draws water out of the cucumbers, tomatoes, cabbage and onions. Draining well before cooking keeps the relish crisp and stops it from thinning or turning watery.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, tomato, pepper, mustard, celery, turmeric, cabbage):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Cauliflowerfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, tomato, pepper, mustard, celery, turmeric, cabbage. 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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