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Chow-chow

A pickled cucumber relish with onions, gherkins, mustard, sugar, 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. Pare the onions.

  2. Wash the other vegetables.

  3. Cut the large vegetables into pieces.

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

  5. Drain the vegetables.

  6. Cover with equal parts of vinegar and water for 12 hours.

Make the pickling mixture

  1. On two mornings, pour the following boiling mixture over the vegetables: 1 pound white mustard, 5 quarts vinegar, 1 ounce turmeric, 2½ pounds brown sugar, and 1 ounce celery seed.

  2. Add 1 pound ground mustard mixed with 1 cup flour to the boiling mixture.

  3. Boil for 10 to 15 minutes.

  4. Add 1 pint of olive oil.

  5. Cool.

  6. 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 relish and soften during brining and pickling while staying crisp enough to eat.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar in the pickling liquid.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the relish its sharp flavor.
Ground mustard
Adds pungent mustard flavor and, with the flour, thickens the pickling liquid.
Flour
Thickens the boiling pickling liquid so it coats the vegetables.
Turmeric
Gives the relish its yellow color and an earthy aroma.

The step that matters

Adding the ground mustard and flour to the boiling mixture. Flour mixed into a hot liquid can clump if it is not blended smoothly first, leaving lumps and an uneven thickness. Mixing the mustard and flour together before adding them helps the starch disperse evenly as the liquid thickens.

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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