Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Chow-chow

A preserved tomato relish of tomatoes, onions, cabbage, spices, vinegar, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 salt over chopped onions and tomatoes; let stand overnight.

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

Combine and pack

  1. Drain off the vinegar and add chopped cabbage, celery seed, cinnamon, mustard seed, allspice, horseradish, and sugar. Mix well and pack into a jar.

  2. Add enough vinegar to make it slightly thin and to preserve.

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 release moisture that the salt draws out.
Onions
Add pungent savour and body that softens during the slow cooking.
Cabbage
Adds crisp texture and bulk that holds its shape within the relish.
Sugar
Balances the vinegar's acidity and adds sweetness.
Horseradish
Contributes sharp pungency that mellows during storage.

The step that matters

Drain well before cooking. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes and onions overnight. Draining thoroughly removes that liquid so the relish does not turn watery, and the vinegar added later can be controlled.

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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesRed CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipes