Skip to main content
Main

Chow-chow

A pickled vegetable relish made with onions, peppers, cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, cauliflower, pickles, spices, horseradish, vinegar, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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. Slice the onions, cabbage, and tomatoes using a slaw cutter.

  2. Cut the peppers and cucumbers into small pieces.

  3. Combine all vegetables with the cauliflower in strong salt water.

  4. Boil until tender but not too soft.

  5. Drain well through a sieve or colander.

Make the relish

  1. Return the vegetables to the kettle and add the small onions, celery, and little pickles (which should have been soaked in salt water several times).

  2. Add the mustard seed, celery seed, cinnamon bark, allspice, mace, grated horseradish, and cider vinegar.

  3. Mix in yellow mustard and turmeric.

  4. Sweeten with brown sugar to taste.

  5. Mix everything well.

  6. Bring to a boil.

Pack

  1. Pack into jars, ensuring the pickles are well covered with vinegar.

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. Cabbage + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 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 relish and holds a crisp texture after boiling.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the relish and gives it its sharp flavor.
White mustard seed
Adds pungent heat and sharp flavor that mellows during cooking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Cucumbers
Contribute crunch and moisture to the finished relish.
Green tomatoes
Add body and tartness, helping thicken the relish as they cook.

The step that matters

Drain the boiled vegetables well. Boiling releases water from the vegetables; leaving too much in the pot dilutes the vinegar and brine, weakening preservation and making the relish watery.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, cabbage, tomato, cucumber, celery, cauliflower, mustard):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cabbage, tomato, cucumber, celery, cauliflower, 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesRed CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipes