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Chow-chow

A pickled relish made from green tomatoes, onions, and green peppers, seasoned with 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 ↓

Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Sprinkle green tomatoes, onions, and green peppers with coarse sea salt and let stand overnight.

  2. Drain off the liquid.

  3. Cover with vinegar and cook slowly for 1 hour.

  4. Drain again and pack the mixture closely in a jar.

Make the spiced liquid and seal

  1. In a separate pot, combine sugar, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, pepper, ground mustard, and horseradish with enough vinegar to mix.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Pour the boiling mixture over the packed vegetables in the jar.

  4. Cover the jar tightly.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 of the relish and release moisture that the salt draws out.
Onions
Add savory depth and body that holds up through long slow cooking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and preserves the relish.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives sharpness and helps preserve the relish.
Horseradish
Contributes a pungent heat that mellows somewhat during standing.

The step that matters

Draining after the overnight salting. Salt draws out a large amount of liquid from the vegetables. Draining thoroughly and packing closely keeps the relish dense and prevents excess water from diluting the vinegar and spiced liquid.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, allspice, clove. 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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