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Chow Chow

A pickled vegetable relish made with green tomatoes, string beans, onions, peppers, cabbage, spices, mustard, sugar, turmeric, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice the green tomatoes.

  2. Let them stand overnight in a brine that will float an egg.

  3. Squeeze out the brine.

  4. Chop the cabbage, onions, and string beans.

  5. Chop the tomatoes separately.

Cook

  1. Mix the tomatoes with the spices.

  2. Put the mixture in a porcelain kettle.

  3. Cover with vinegar.

  4. Boil for three 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. Tomato + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Beans + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the relish and a tart, firm body.
Cabbage
Adds crunch and bulk that holds its texture through long cooking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the vinegar's acidity.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid and supplies sharp acidity.
White mustard seed
Adds pungent, slightly bitter heat that mellows during cooking.

The step that matters

Squeeze out the brine. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes. If brine is left in, the relish can taste overly salty and the vegetables can stay watery, so the brine should be squeezed out thoroughly before cooking.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, beans, onion, pepper, cabbage, mustard, celery. 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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