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Chow Chow

A pickled relish of tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, peppers, corn, and beans with mustard, sugar, and curry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Salt the sliced cucumbers and let them sit overnight.

  2. Soak the chopped onions and sliced green peppers in cold water overnight.

  3. Drain the tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and peppers.

Cook and pack

  1. Cover the drained vegetables with vinegar and cook for 30 minutes.

  2. Drain again and add the sweet corn, string beans, celery seed, and mustard seed.

  3. Pack the mixture into jars.

Make the dressing and finish

  1. Combine the mustard, sugar, curry powder, and enough vinegar to cover the pickles.

  2. Boil together.

  3. Pour the mixture over the packed jars.

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. Tomato + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  2. Corn + beanstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,211 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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 add tartness as they cook in vinegar.
Cucumbers
Stay crisp-textured after salting and add mild, fresh body to the relish.
Green peppers
Contribute crunch and a grassy, slightly bitter flavor to the mixture.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness to the relish.
Table mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor to the sweet and sour dressing.
Curry powder
Adds warm, aromatic spice to the dressing.

The step that matters

Salting and soaking overnight. Salt and soaking draw water out of the cucumbers, onions, and peppers. Skipping or shortening this step leaves the vegetables watery, which dilutes the vinegar and softens the final relish.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, cucumber, pepper, vinegar, corn, beans, celery):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cucumber, pepper, vinegar, corn, beans, celery. 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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