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Chow-chow

A pickled vegetable relish made with onions, cucumbers, cauliflower, cabbage, green tomatoes, and red peppers, seasoned with salt, spices, sugar, and cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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. Chop the onions, cucumbers, cauliflower, cabbage, green tomatoes, and red peppers finely.

  2. Sprinkle the chopped vegetables with ½ cup coarse sea salt.

  3. Let the salted vegetables sit overnight.

  4. Drain the vegetables.

Cook and seal

  1. Add cinnamon, mustard seed, celery seed, sugar, pepper, and enough cider vinegar to cover.

  2. Place the mixture in an agate or porcelain-lined kettle and boil for about 30 minutes.

  3. Seal the hot chow-chow in glass jars.

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

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

  5. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 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

Onions
Add bulk and a pungent savory base to the relish.
Cucumbers
Contribute crisp texture and moisture that the salting helps firm up.
Cauliflower
Provides firm, chunky texture that holds up during boiling.
Green tomatoes
Add tartness and body to the relish.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, firming them and concentrating flavor before draining.
White sugar
Balances the vinegar's acidity and adds sweetness.

The step that matters

Draining after the overnight salt. Salt draws water out of the vegetables. If they are not drained well, the excess liquid dilutes the vinegar and sugar mixture, weakening the flavor and preservative balance of the relish.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Cinnamonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, cucumber, cauliflower, cabbage, tomato, pepper, 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.

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