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Chow-chow

Chow-Chow is a pickled vegetable relish made from cucumbers, green tomatoes, string beans, cauliflower, celery, sweet peppers, mustard, curry powder, and vinegar.

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

  1. Soak cucumbers, green tomatoes, string beans, cauliflower, celery, and sweet peppers in strong saltwater overnight.

  2. In the morning, drain the brine and cut the vegetables into pieces that fit into glass jars.

  3. Scald the vegetables in weak saltwater; do not cover while scalding.

Pickle and jar

  1. Combine mustard and curry powder with vinegar in a pot and bring to a boil.

  2. Place the pickled vegetables into jars and pour the hot liquid over them.

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. Tomato + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp taste.
Mustard
Adds a pungent, sharp flavour that balances the sourness of the vinegar.
Curry powder
Contributes warm spice aroma and a yellow colour to the pickling liquid.
Cucumbers
Make up the bulk of the pickle; salting draws out water so they stay firmer.

The step that matters

Overnight strong saltwater soak. Salt draws water out of the vegetables by osmosis, so they lose moisture and stay firm and crisp rather than going soft in the hot vinegar liquid. Skipping or shortening the soak leaves them limp.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, beans, cauliflower, celery, pepper, mustard, 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.

More chow-chow recipes

Tomato 9Relish 8Mustard 6Virginia 5Pickle 4 See all 29 →

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