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Cucumber Chow-chow

A pickled cucumber relish with peppers, onions, tomatoes, mustard, celery seed, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cucumber Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Salt the cucumbers and onions separately overnight using ½ pint of salt.

  2. In the morning, drain them as dry as possible.

Cook

  1. Add 1 lb of sugar, ½ oz of celery seed, ½ oz of mustard seed, and the ripe tomatoes to the cucumbers, onions, and peppers.

  2. Cover with vinegar and boil until tender and thick.

  3. About 5 minutes before removing from heat, add 2 tablespoons of mustard moistened with vinegar and stir well while boiling.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  4. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + celerytop 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

Cucumbers
Form the bulk of the chow, giving crisp-tender pieces after salting and cooking.
White onions
Add savory flavor and body, softening into the chow as it cooks.
Ripe tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity, helping form the thick, saucy base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the vinegar's sharpness.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the chow and sharpens its flavor.
Mustard
Adds pungent flavor that deepens the sharp, tangy character of the relish.

The step that matters

Boil until tender and thick. Cooking must continue until the vegetables soften and excess liquid reduces, so the chow sets thick rather than watery. Adding the mustard near the end keeps its sharp flavor from dulling during long boiling.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, pepper, sugar, celery, mustard, tomato, vinegar. 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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