Name: Chow-chow
Ingredients: 1 peck green tomatoes, sliced; ½ cup grated horseradish; 4 peppers, chopped; 6 onions, chopped; 1 pound sugar; 2 tablespoons ground cloves; 2 tablespoons allspice; vinegar, enough to cover

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Sprinkle sliced green tomatoes with salt and let them stand overnight.

Cook

Combine grated horseradish, chopped peppers, chopped onions, sugar, ground cloves, and allspice in a large pot.
Add enough vinegar to cover the mixture.
Boil until the tomatoes are tender.

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.

Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Horseradish + allspicetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together654 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Horseradish + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,784 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 become tender when boiled in the vinegar.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Onions: Add savory flavor and aroma to the mixture.
Peppers: Add bulk, mild heat and fresh vegetable flavor.
Horseradish: Adds pungent, sharp heat that mellows during cooking.

Swap the tomato

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

Mustardfits better
Shallotfits better
Turnipfits better
Tomatothe original

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