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French Chow Chow

A pickled relish of cucumbers, tomatoes, cauliflower, peppers, and spices, preserved in a mustard‑turmeric‑flour‑sugar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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 ↓

French Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine cucumbers, small cucumbers, green tomatoes, cauliflower, and green peppers in a large bowl.

  2. Prepare a weak brine by dissolving 1 cup of salt in 1 gallon of water.

  3. Soak the vegetables in the brine for 24 hours.

  4. Scald the vegetables in the same brine and then drain them.

Make the mustard sauce

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the ground mustard, turmeric, flour, and sugar.

  2. Add a little vinegar to form a paste.

  3. Gradually add the remaining vinegar to the paste and heat until it thickens into a smooth mixture.

  4. Stir in the drained vegetables until well coated.

  5. If desired, add chopped onions for extra flavor.

Jar and rest

  1. Transfer the chow chow to a jar and let it sit for at least a day before serving; it improves in flavor after a month.

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. Cucumber + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Cauliflower + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together514 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Cauliflower + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 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
Add tartness and body to the pickled vegetable mixture.
Cauliflower
Adds firm, crisp pieces that hold their shape in the pickle.
Flour
Thickens the mustard sauce so it clings to the vegetables.
Ground mustard
Provides the sharp, pungent flavor that defines the sauce.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the sauce its tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard with sweetness.

The step that matters

Heat the mustard paste until smooth. Flour thickens only when it is cooked with liquid and stirred, so the paste must be blended smooth before and while heating; otherwise lumps form and the sauce stays grainy or pasty.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, cauliflower, pepper, mustard, turmeric, flour, sugar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cauliflower, pepper, mustard, turmeric, flour, 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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