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Preserve

Chow-chow

A pickled relish of tomatoes, onions, cabbage, and peppers seasoned with sugar, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, ripe tomatoes, onions, cabbage, green peppers, and red peppers.

  2. Sprinkle the chopped vegetables with coarse sea salt and place them in a coarse bag. Drain the vegetables overnight.

Make the relish

  1. In the morning, place the drained vegetables in a porcelain-lined kettle.

  2. Add brown sugar, grated horseradish, ground black pepper, ground mustard, whole white mustard seed, ground mace, and celery seed.

  3. Cover the mixture with vinegar and boil until clear.

  4. Seal the chow-chow 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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  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 and tart body of the relish as they cook down.
Cabbage
Adds crisp-tender texture and bulk that holds up through long cooking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses depth that balances the vinegar's acidity.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the relish and gives it its sharp flavor.
Onions
Contribute savory sharpness and aroma that mellow during long simmering.
Whole white mustard seed
Adds a pungent, slightly bitter bite that develops as the relish cooks.

The step that matters

Boil until clear. Boiling the relish in vinegar until the vegetables turn clear and tender cooks off excess moisture and softens the vegetables. Stopping early leaves a watery, raw-tasting relish that may not keep well in jars.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

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