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Chow-chow

A pickled vegetable relish made with green beans, cauliflower, onions, pickles, and a mustard‑turmeric vinegar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 514 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Boil the green beans until almost tender.

  2. Scald and peel the onions.

  3. Parboil the cauliflower.

  4. In a crock, combine the beans, cauliflower, onions, and pickles, and cover with strong salt brine.

  5. After 24 hours, drain the mixture.

Make the dressing

  1. In a pot, combine the flour, sugar, mustard, and turmeric. Moisten the mixture with cider vinegar until smooth.

  2. Stir this into 1 gallon of boiling vinegar, stirring continuously to prevent scorching.

  3. Bring to a boil and pour over the chow-chow. Add more vinegar if the mixture is not fully covered.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Green beans + cauliflowertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together75 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Flour + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,637 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the mustard and vinegar mixture into a smooth, thick sauce.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that gives the relish its characteristic taste.
Turmeric
Gives the relish its bright yellow colour and a mild earthy aroma.
Cider vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and sharpens the overall flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar and mustard with sweetness.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour mixture into boiling vinegar. Flour mixed with mustard can clump or scorch on the base of the pot if it is not stirred constantly while it heats. Keep stirring so the sauce stays smooth and thickens evenly.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against green beans, cauliflower, flour, sugar, mustard, turmeric, cider. 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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