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Chow Chow

A pickled vegetable relish made from shredded tomatoes, peppers, onions, cabbage, celery, vinegar, sugar, mustard seed, and celery seed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard 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. Sprinkle the shredded tomatoes, green peppers, and onions with coarse sea salt and let them stand overnight.

  2. Press the mixture dry.

Cook and bottle

  1. Add the chopped cabbage, celery, vinegar, brown sugar, white mustard seed, and celery seed.

  2. Cook until tender.

  3. Bottle the mixture.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

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 texture when cooked.
Silver-skin onions
Add savory flavor and body, and release moisture that salting draws out.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the relish its sharp, tangy character and helps preserve it.
Brown sugar
Balances the acidity with sweetness and adds depth of flavor.
White mustard seed
Contributes sharp, pungent flavor that mellows during cooking.

The step that matters

Pressing the salted mixture dry. Salt draws water out of the vegetables. Pressing removes that liquid so the relish cooks thick rather than watery, and the vinegar and sugar are not diluted.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, onion, cabbage, celery, vinegar, sugar, mustard. 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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Relish 49Pickle 25Pickles 16Tomato 9Cucumber 4Salad 3 See all 120 →

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