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Chow Chow

A pickled vegetable relish made with cucumbers, onions, string beans, cauliflower, vinegar, mustard, turmeric, sugar, and olive oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 584 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cook the onions, string beans, and cauliflower together until tender but not soft.

  2. Stand the cucumbers in strong brine overnight.

Make the dressing

  1. In a pot, bring the vinegar to a boil.

  2. Make a paste with the mustard, turmeric, white mustard seed, sugar, and olive oil.

  3. Stir the paste into the boiling vinegar constantly until it thickens.

Pack and finish

  1. Pour the mixture over the mixed and packed vegetables in glass 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. Cucumber + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Cauliflower + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together514 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Cauliflower + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Beans + cauliflowertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that preserves the vegetables and balances the sweetness.
English mustard
Adds pungent heat and sharp flavour to the dressing.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow colour and an earthy aroma.
Sugar
Softens the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness.
Olive oil
Carries the spices into the paste and adds richness to the dressing.
Cauliflower
Forms the firm, crunchy bulk of the pickle that holds its texture in the brine.

The step that matters

Stir the paste into the boiling vinegar constantly until it thickens. Mustard and flour-free spice pastes can scorch or separate if left unstirred, and the mixture only thickens evenly when it is kept moving over the heat. Constant stirring keeps the paste dispersed so the dressing stays smooth and coats the vegetables.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, beans, cauliflower, vinegar, mustard, turmeric, sugar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, beans, cauliflower, vinegar, mustard, turmeric, sugar. 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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