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Chow-chow

A pickled cucumber and vegetable relish from the Southern United States.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut the cauliflower into pieces suitable for pickling.

  2. Boil the cauliflower in salted water until easily pierced with a broom splint.

  3. Boil the onions and tomatoes separately in weak vinegar until tender.

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, mix the ground mustard, flour, turmeric, and brown sugar.

  2. Wet the mixture with a little vinegar and stir until smooth.

  3. Add vinegar until you have used 1 gallon, then let it boil until thickened.

Combine and can

  1. Add all ingredients to the thickened mixture and heat thoroughly, stirring constantly.

  2. Can while hot.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cucumber + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

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

  3. Cauliflower + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together139 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ground mustard
Provides the sharp, pungent flavor that defines the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the vinegar sauce so it clings to the vegetables.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow color and adds a mild, earthy flavor.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the pickles and sharpens the flavor.
Cauliflower
Forms the firm, bulky body of the pickle mix.
Brown sugar
Balances the acidity and sharpness with sweetness.

The step that matters

Stirring the mustard sauce while it thickens. Flour mixed into hot liquid can clump if it is not stirred smoothly. Wetting the powder first and stirring until smooth, then keeping the mixture moving while it heats, gives an even, thick sauce without lumps or scorching on the bottom.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, onion, cauliflower, pepper, horseradish, mustard, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, onion, cauliflower, pepper, horseradish, mustard, flour. 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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