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Tomato Chow Chow

A pickled relish of green tomatoes, peppers, onions, and spices, preserved in vinegar and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Tomato Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the green tomatoes, green peppers, and onions.

  2. Stir in the coarse sea salt and let them sit overnight.

  3. Drain the water and place the vegetables in a kettle.

Cook

  1. Add enough vinegar to cover the vegetables.

  2. Mix in the grated horseradish, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and sugar.

  3. Cook until soft.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 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. Horseradish + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 soften into a tender, chunky texture during cooking.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, firming them and concentrating their flavor before cooking.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the relish and gives it a sharp, tangy bite.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the vinegar and adds sweetness.
Grated horseradish
Contributes a pungent, sharp heat that mellows during cooking.

The step that matters

Drain the water after salting. Salting draws out excess liquid. If the vegetables are not drained well, the extra water dilutes the vinegar and makes the final relish watery and overly salty.

Swap the onion

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

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

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