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Chow Chow

A pickled vegetable relish made from cabbage, cauliflower, onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, celery, vinegar, mustard, turmeric, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and cucumber 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 ↓

Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut the cabbage into small pieces and boil until tender.

  2. Cut the cauliflower and boil in a separate pan.

  3. Boil the small onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, and chopped celery in separate pans.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. In a large pan, combine vinegar, ground mustard, mustard seed, French mustard, turmeric, and cloves, and bring to a boil.

Combine and jar

  1. Mix all the cooked vegetables together and pour the boiling liquid over them.

  2. Let it cool, then transfer to jars and cover tightly.

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 + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 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

Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent, slightly bitter flavour and a crunchy texture to the pickle.
Ground mustard
Contributes sharp mustard heat and flavour that blends into the liquid.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow colour and a mild, earthy flavour.
Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the vegetables, adding crisp-tender texture once boiled.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, cauliflower, onion, cucumber, celery, vinegar, mustard):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, cauliflower, onion, cucumber, celery, vinegar, mustard. 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.

More chow chow recipes

Relish 49Pickle 25Pickles 16Tomato 9Cucumber 4Salad 3 See all 120 →

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