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French Chow Chow

A pickled vegetable relish made with cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, cauliflower, peppers, mustard, turmeric, flour, brown sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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, onions, tomatoes, cauliflower, and peppers in weak brine and let stand for 24 hours.

  2. Scald the mixture in the same brine, then drain through cheesecloth.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix mustard, turmeric, flour, and brown sugar, then moisten with a little vinegar.

  2. Add the remaining vinegar and stir on the stove until smooth and thick.

Combine and finish

  1. Add the drained pickles to the mixture and stir to combine.

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

Cucumbers
Provide the crisp, pickled bulk of the relish after brining.
Coleman's mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that balances the sweetness and vinegar.
Flour
Thickens the vinegar mixture into a smooth, stable sauce.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Acidifies the relish, preserving the vegetables and giving tang.
Turmeric
Gives the relish its yellow colour and a warm, earthy aroma.

The step that matters

Stirring the dressing on the stove until smooth and thick. Flour must be fully mixed into the liquid and heated so it cooks through and thickens evenly; otherwise the sauce stays lumpy or tastes raw, and it may not coat the vegetables properly.

Swap the onion

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

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

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