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Chow-chow

A pickled tomato relish made with green tomatoes, hot peppers, onions, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Place sliced green tomatoes in a jar and cover with water.

  2. Add 1 pint of coarse sea salt and let stand for 24 hours.

  3. Pour off the salt water and add fresh water.

  4. Let drain for 1-2 hours.

Make the relish

  1. Chop the tomatoes with the hot peppers and onions.

  2. Put the mixture in a bottle with 1 pint of vinegar.

  3. Heat over the fire, stirring until it comes to a scald.

  4. Drain the mixture and place it in a jar.

  5. Add 1 cup of grated horseradish, 1 cup of ground cloves and allspice, 1 cup of white mustard seed, and 1 cup of brown sugar.

  6. Stir well and cover with vinegar.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Horseradish + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the relish and, after salting, release water to give a firmer texture.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the tomatoes and onions, firming them and reducing excess liquid.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that preserves the relish and balances the sweetness.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that offsets the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.
White mustard seed
Contributes pungent, sharp flavour that deepens as the relish sits.

The step that matters

Draining after the salt soak. Salt draws water from the tomatoes; rinsing and draining thoroughly removes excess salt and liquid, so the relish stays firm and not overly salty.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, onion, vinegar, horseradish, clove, allspice, mustard):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, onion, vinegar, horseradish, clove, allspice, 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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