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Chow-chow

A pickled vegetable relish of cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, cauliflower, and peppers in a mustard‑flour‑sugar‑turmeric vinegar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Soak the vegetables in a weak brine overnight in separate dishes.

  2. Cook each type of vegetable in the brine they soaked in separately.

Make the dressing

  1. Stir together turmeric, flour, mustard, and sugar with part of the vinegar.

  2. Slowly add the rest of the vinegar.

  3. Cook the mixture for 15 minutes and pour it over the vegetables.

Combine and thicken

  1. Boil all the vegetables together in a pail.

  2. Set the pail in a kettle of boiling water until thick enough.

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

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

  3. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  5. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 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 tangy, spiced dressing.
Cucumbers
Add crisp texture and moisture that stays firm after brining and cooking.
Cauliflower
Adds firm, crunchy pieces that hold their shape in the pickle.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Flour
Thickens the dressing so it clings to the vegetables rather than running off.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that balances the sweetness and acidity.

The step that matters

Thickening the dressing over boiling water. Flour must be fully mixed into the vinegar before heating, or it clumps. Gentle heating in a water bath lets the starch swell evenly and thicken without scorching the vinegar mixture.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, tomato, cauliflower, pepper, vinegar, mustard, coffee. 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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