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English Chow-chow

A pickled vegetable relish made with cauliflower, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, peppers, and spices, preserved in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and radish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 212 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

English Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the vegetables

  1. Cut the cauliflower into small clusters.

  2. Peel the onions.

  3. Layer the vegetables in a wide-mouthed stone jar.

  4. Sprinkle each layer thickly with coarse sea salt.

  5. Press down the vegetables with a plate or disk of wood, weighting it with a flat iron to keep them submerged in cold water.

  6. Let the jar sit undisturbed for 3 days.

Rinse and soak

  1. Drain the brine.

  2. Wash the pickles in pure water.

  3. Cover the pickles with fresh water.

  4. Let them soak for 24 hours.

Make the pickle

  1. In a pot, combine the vinegar, black peppercorns, cloves, turmeric, celery seed, white mustard seed, mace, horseradish, brown sugar, and ground mustard.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add the pickles, ensuring none are soft or decayed.

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. Cucumber + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cauliflower + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Cauliflower + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together55 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  4. Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  5. Cauliflower + beanstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Forms the crisp, firm body of the pickle that holds its texture in the brine.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables and firms them while it cures them.
Vinegar
Its acidity preserves the pickles and gives the sharp, tangy flavour.
Brown sugar
Balances the vinegar's sharpness with sweetness and a deeper, molasses flavour.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow colour and a mild, earthy aroma.
Ground mustard
Adds pungency and sharp heat that complements the vinegar.

The step that matters

Add the pickles, ensuring none are soft or decayed. Vegetables that are already soft or spoiled will not firm up in the hot brine and can spoil the whole jar, so only sound pieces should go in.

Swap the radish

The recipe marks radish as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cauliflower, beans, tomato, cucumber, onion, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Broccolifits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Radishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, beans, tomato, cucumber, onion, pepper, 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.

More chow chow recipes

Relish 49Pickle 25Pickles 16Tomato 9Cucumber 4Salad 3 See all 120 →

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