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Chow-chow

A pickled cucumber and vegetable relish seasoned with mustard, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Peel the onions and wash the other vegetables.

  2. Cut the large vegetables into pieces.

  3. Cover the vegetables with brine strong enough to float an egg for 24 hours.

  4. Drain and cover with equal parts of vinegar and water for 12 hours.

Make the pickling syrup and pour

  1. On two mornings, pour the following boiling hot mixture over the vegetables: white mustard, vinegar, turmeric, brown sugar, and celery seed.

  2. On the third morning, add ground mustard mixed with flour and cold vinegar to the boiling mixture and boil for 10 to 15 minutes.

  3. Stir in olive oil, cool, and pour over the pickles.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Turmeric + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cucumber + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the bulk of the pickle, becoming crisp-tender after brining and soaking.
Onions
Add savory flavor and body to the pickle mix.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its tang.
Ground mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor and helps thicken the pickling liquid with flour.
Flour
Thickens the mustard mixture so it coats the vegetables.

The step that matters

Adding the ground mustard and flour mixture. Flour mixed with mustard must be blended into cold vinegar first, then added to the boiling liquid, or it will clump. Boiling it briefly lets the starch thicken the sauce and cooks off raw flour taste.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, mustard, vinegar, turmeric, sugar, celery, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, mustard, vinegar, turmeric, sugar, celery, flour. 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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