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Chow Chow

A pickled vegetable relish made with tomatoes, onions, celery, cabbage, cucumbers, peppers, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and cucumber are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,405 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Seed the peppers and tomatoes, and peel the cucumbers.

  2. Mix the vegetables with salt and set aside for a few hours.

  3. Drain the vegetables overnight in a sack.

Pack and pickle

  1. Put the drained vegetables into jars.

  2. In a kettle, boil the cider vinegar with brown sugar, black pepper, celery seed, and mustard seed for a few minutes.

  3. Pour the boiling hot vinegar mixture over the vegetables.

  4. Reheat the vinegar mixture 2 to 3 times over the next few days.

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 + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  5. Cabbage + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together722 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

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the pickle and absorb the brine and vinegar flavour as they sit.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, firming them and making them less watery before pickling.
Cider vinegar
Acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavour.
Brown sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness and a deeper, molasses-like flavour.
Cabbage
Adds crunch and bulk, holding its texture through the brine.
Cucumbers
Add crisp texture and fresh flavour to the mixed vegetables.

The step that matters

Draining the salted vegetables overnight. Salt pulls moisture out of the vegetables. If they are not drained well, excess water dilutes the vinegar mixture, weakening its acidity and leaving the pickle soft and less crisp.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, celery, cabbage, cucumber, pepper, cider, vinegar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, celery, cabbage, cucumber, pepper, cider, vinegar. 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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