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Mustard Chow-chow

A pickled vegetable relish made with tomatoes, pickles, onions, cauliflower, peppers, and beans in a mustard and turmeric brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Mustard Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine green tomatoes, pickles, onions, cauliflower, red peppers, and green string beans in a large bowl.

  2. Dissolve 2 cups coarse sea salt in 4 quarts of water, pour over the vegetables, and let stand for 24 hours.

  3. Heat the brine with the vegetables, then drain them well.

Make the sauce and finish

  1. In a bowl, mix 1 cup flour, 4 tablespoons mustard, 1 tablespoon turmeric powder, and 1 cup sugar into a smooth paste with a little water.

  2. Add 2 quarts of hot vinegar to the paste and pour it over the vegetables.

  3. Cook until heated through, being careful not to boil them to avoid softness.

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

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

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

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

  4. Cauliflower + beanstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the vinegar sauce so it coats the vegetables.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that balances the sweetness and acidity.
Sugar
Sweetens the pickle and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Hot vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the sauce its tang.
Green tomatoes
Provide firm texture and tartness that hold their shape in the pickle.

The step that matters

Cook until heated through, without boiling. Boiling softens the vegetables and can break down their texture, so they should be heated only until warm and still firm.

Swap the onion

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

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

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