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Tomato Chow-chow

A pickled tomato relish with onions, celery, peppers, sugar, mustard seed, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Tomato Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice the tomatoes (not too thin).

  2. Chop the onions.

  3. Sprinkle the tomatoes and onions thoroughly with salt.

  4. Let them stand overnight with a weight on top.

  5. Drain the mixture.

Cook and seal

  1. Boil it for 15 minutes in water and vinegar.

  2. Drain again.

  3. Add the finely chopped peppers, brown sugar, salt, cloves, cinnamon, and mustard seed.

  4. Add the vinegar.

  5. Boil for 10 minutes.

  6. Seal in 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Celery + peppertop 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main bulk and juicy body of the relish.
Onions
Add pungent flavour that mellows during long cooking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the relish and gives it tang.
White mustard seed
Contributes sharp, pungent flavour that mellows during cooking.

The step that matters

Salting and draining the tomatoes and onions overnight. Salt draws out excess water through osmosis. Draining well before cooking keeps the relish thick rather than watery, and the vegetables firmer after boiling.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, celery, sugar, mustard, cinnamon, clove, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, celery, sugar, mustard, cinnamon, clove, pepper. 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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