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Tomato Chow-chow

A preserved tomato relish with tomatoes, onions, cabbage, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sprinkle the salt over the chopped onions and let it stand overnight.

  2. Drain well and cook the tomatoes and onions in weak vinegar slowly for 1 hour.

Combine and pack

  1. Drain off the vinegar and add the chopped cabbage, celery seed, cinnamon, mustard seed, allspice, horseradish, and sugar.

  2. Mix well and pack into a jar.

  3. Add enough vinegar to make it a little thin and to preserve it.

  4. Pour the vinegar mixture over the tomatoes, onions, cabbage, and spices in the jar.

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. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

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

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

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 soften into a tender, chunky body when cooked.
Onions
Add savory flavor and sweetness that deepens as they cook slowly with the salt.
Cabbage
Adds crisp texture and body that holds up through the long preserving process.
Horseradish
Contributes sharp heat that mellows during storage.
Sugar
Balances the sharp vinegar and tomato acidity with sweetness.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the relish and sets its tangy character.

The step that matters

Drain well before cooking the tomatoes and onions. Salted onions and tomatoes release a lot of liquid. Removing it before adding the vinegar keeps the relish from becoming watery and lets the vinegar be measured for the final thinning.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, vinegar, cabbage, celery, cinnamon, mustard, allspice):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, cabbage, celery, cinnamon, mustard, allspice. 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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