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Tomato Chow Chow

A tomato and onion stew flavored with salt, cinnamon, cloves, red peppers, mustard, ginger, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Tomato Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the tomatoes and onions.

  2. Sprinkle with salt and let stand for 12 hours.

  3. Drain the mixture.

Cook

  1. Add cinnamon, cloves, red peppers, mustard, ginger, and sugar.

  2. Cover with vinegar and simmer until soft.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Tomatoes
Provide the bulk and moisture of the relish, softening into the body of the chow chow.
Onions
Add savory depth and sharpness that mellows during the long simmer.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the vinegar and helps preserve the relish.
Vinegar
Supplies acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps keep the relish stable.
Mustard
Contributes pungent, tangy flavour that rounds out the spiced sweet-sour profile.

The step that matters

Drain after salting. Salt draws water out of the sliced tomatoes and onions. Draining removes that liquid so the relish does not turn watery and dilute the vinegar and sugar during simmering.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, cinnamon, clove, pepper, mustard, ginger, sugar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cinnamon, clove, pepper, mustard, ginger, 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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