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Chowchow Pickle

A pickle made from cucumbers, peppers, onions, tomatoes, pickles, catsup, spices, sugar, mustard, horseradish, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,279 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chowchow Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the cucumbers, green peppers, onions, and green tomatoes.

  2. Add the pickles and catsup, and sprinkle with salt.

  3. Let the mixture drain overnight.

Cook

  1. In the morning, add mace, white pepper, mustard seed, turmeric, cloves, celery seed, sugar, table mustard, and sliced horseradish.

  2. Cover with vinegar and boil all together for 30 minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  4. Cucumber + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Make up the bulk of the pickle and give it a crisp, crunchy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and salt.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its tang.
Sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables during the overnight drain, firming them and reducing moisture.
White mustard seed
Contributes pungent flavor that deepens as the pickle cooks in vinegar.

The step that matters

Overnight drain after salting. Salt draws water out of the sliced vegetables through osmosis. Draining fully before adding vinegar and sugar keeps the pickle firm and stops it from becoming watery and diluted.

Swap the white pepper

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, pepper, onion, tomato, mace, mustard, turmeric. 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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