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Chow-chow

Chow-Chow is a pickled cabbage dish with onions, cucumbers, and spices, simmered in vinegar and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Layer the cabbage, onions, and cucumbers in a vessel with coarse sea salt overnight.

Cook

  1. Drain thoroughly and add the vinegar, brown sugar, horseradish, mustard seeds, ground mustard, black pepper, celery seed, cinnamon, and turmeric.

  2. Set the mixture over low heat and cook for 2 hours.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 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

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the relish, giving it a crisp, sturdy texture after salting.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the relish and gives it its sharp flavour.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard.
Mustard seed
Supplies the pungent, sharp heat that defines the relish's character.
Horseradish
Adds a sharp, pungent bite that complements the mustard flavours.
Onions
Contribute aromatic sweetness and body to the cooked mixture.

The step that matters

Salting overnight and draining thoroughly. Salt draws water out of the cabbage, onions, and cucumbers. Draining well removes that liquid so the relish cooks thick rather than watery and the vegetables keep some crispness.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, cucumber, vinegar, sugar, horseradish, mustard, pepper):

  1. Radishfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, cucumber, vinegar, sugar, horseradish, mustard, pepper. 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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Relish 49Pickle 25Pickles 16Tomato 9Cucumber 4Salad 3 See all 120 →

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