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Mustard Chow-chow

A pickled relish of green tomatoes, onions, and peppers flavored with mustard, flour, and turmeric.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,279 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Mustard Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the tomatoes, onions, and peppers finely.

  2. Put the chopped vegetables in brine overnight.

  3. In the morning, drain the vegetables and pack them in a jar.

Make the mustard sauce

  1. In a double boiler, combine vinegar, mustard, flour, and turmeric.

  2. Cook until thick.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Flour + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,637 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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

Flour
Thickens the mustard sauce as it cooks, giving it a smooth, thick body.
Mustard
Provides the sharp, pungent flavor that defines the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickle its tang and helps preserve it.
Turmeric
Gives the sauce its yellow color and a mild, earthy aroma.

The step that matters

Cook until thick. Flour thickens only when heated long enough for its starch to swell and set, so the sauce must cook gently and steadily. Stirring in a double boiler keeps the flour from scorching or lumping.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, pepper, vinegar, mustard, flour, turmeric):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, vinegar, mustard, flour, turmeric. 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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