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Chow Chow

A pickled relish of green tomatoes, cabbage, peppers, onions, salt, spices, brown sugar, and vinegar, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,928 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

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

  2. In a large bowl, combine the chopped vegetables with salt, black pepper, allspice, white mustard, and brown sugar.

Cook

  1. Cover the mixture with vinegar.

  2. Simmer the mixture for 3 hours over low heat.

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. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  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

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the relish and its tart, acidic base.
Cabbage
Adds crunch and body that holds up through long simmering.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharp vinegar.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid and provides sharp acidity.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma as they soften during simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer the mixture for 3 hours over low heat. Gentle, prolonged heat softens the chopped vegetables and lets the vinegar, sugar and spices meld. Too much heat can scorch the sugar and burn the bottom of the pot, so the mixture should be stirred regularly.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, pepper, onion, allspice, mustard, sugar, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, pepper, onion, allspice, mustard, sugar, 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.

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