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Chow-chow

A pickled relish of celery, onions, cauliflower, pickles, mustard, turmeric, and vinegar, seasoned with coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 514 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the celery, onions, cauliflower, and pickles into small pieces.

  2. Combine all chopped ingredients in an earthen pan and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

  3. Let the mixture sit for 12 hours.

Pickle and jar

  1. Boil the cider vinegar for 10 minutes.

  2. Remove the pickles from the salt and pour the hot vinegar over them.

  3. Fill your jars with the mixture and seal 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. Cauliflower + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together514 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Celery + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Provides the bulk and a firm, crisp texture that holds up to pickling.
Cider vinegar
Supplies the acidity that preserves and sharpens the relish.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, firming them and concentrating flavour before pickling.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that defines the relish.
Pickles
Contribute briny, sour flavour and savoury body to the mix.

The step that matters

Salting the chopped vegetables for 12 hours. Salt draws out excess water from the vegetables. If they are not drained or rinsed well after salting, the relish can be overly salty and watery, and the crisp texture can soften.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, cauliflower, mustard, turmeric, cider, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, cauliflower, mustard, turmeric, cider, 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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