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Salad

Old Virginia Chow-Chow

A pickled relish of tomatoes, cabbage, onions, peppers, celery, and spices, boiled and jarred.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Old Virginia Chow-Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Sprinkle chopped vegetables with coarse sea salt and let stand for 24 hours.

  2. Drain the vegetables thoroughly.

Cook the relish

  1. In a large pot, combine the drained vegetables with cider vinegar and brown sugar.

  2. Boil the mixture for 1 hour.

  3. Add chopped ripe tomatoes, celery, and horseradish, and boil for an additional 15 minutes.

  4. Stir in cloves, mustard, white mustard seed, allspice, and ginger. Mix thoroughly and transfer to jars for storage.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

  5. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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 release moisture that the salt draws out.
Cabbage
Adds body and crisp texture to the chopped vegetable mass.
Cider vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the relish its tang and helps preserve it.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and tomatoes.
Onions
Contribute savory depth and aroma as they soften during the long boil.
White mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp flavour that deepens during cooking.

The step that matters

Draining the salted vegetables thoroughly. Salt draws water out of the vegetables over 24 hours. If they are not drained well, excess liquid dilutes the vinegar and sugar mixture, so the relish cooks watery and loses flavour and body.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, cabbage, pepper, cider, vinegar, sugar, celery):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cabbage, pepper, cider, vinegar, sugar, 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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