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Salad

Chow Chow

A preserved vegetable relish made from cucumbers, cabbage, onions, bell peppers, and spices, pickled in cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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. Sprinkle salt over the sliced cucumbers, chopped cabbage, onions, and bell peppers, then let stand for 12 hours.

  2. Press out excess moisture with your hands.

Cook and seal

  1. In a porcelain kettle, layer the chopped vegetables with the spices: white mustard seed, turmeric, celery seed, ground mustard, and sugar.

  2. Cover the mixture with cider vinegar and boil until it begins to thicken.

  3. Seal while hot.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the crisp, watery bulk of the relish that stays crunchy after pickling.
Cabbage
Adds body and crunch to the relish as it cooks down.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the relish.
Sugar
Balances the sharp vinegar with sweetness and helps soften the mixture.
White mustard seed
Contributes pungent, sharp flavour as the spices release into the vinegar.

The step that matters

Pressing out the moisture after salting. Salt draws water out of the sliced vegetables. Pressing out the excess keeps the relish from diluting the vinegar, which helps it thicken and stay crisp rather than soggy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cabbage, pepper, mustard, turmeric, celery, sugar. 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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