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Chow Chow Pickle

A pickled mixture of cabbage, peppers, onions, and cucumbers in a spiced vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chow Chow Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice the cabbage, red peppers, green peppers, white onions, and cucumbers finely.

  2. Place the sliced vegetables in a colander and sprinkle with coarse sea salt. Press down and let stand for 24 hours.

Make the pickle

  1. In a bowl, combine the cold vinegar, ground mustard seed, grated horseradish, whole cloves, and allspice.

  2. Add the bag of turmeric to the vinegar mixture.

  3. Transfer the vegetables to a stone jar and pour the spiced vinegar over them.

  4. Add the brown sugar and mix well.

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 + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

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

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the pickle, giving it a firm, crisp texture.
Cold vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Ground mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that balances the sweetness and acidity.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow colour and a mild, earthy aroma.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the sharp vinegar and spices.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the sliced vegetables, leaving them crisper and less watery.

The step that matters

Salting and pressing the vegetables. Salt draws moisture out of the sliced vegetables through osmosis. Pressing and standing for the full 24 hours removes enough water that the pickle stays crisp rather than diluting the vinegar.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, pepper, onion, cucumber, vinegar, mustard, horseradish. 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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