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An Excellent Chow Chow Pickle

A pickled cabbage relish with celery, onions, peppers, spices, and sweet oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

An Excellent Chow Chow Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice the cabbage, celery, and onions finely, then salt them well.

  2. After 24 hours, drain the vegetables and cover them with vinegar for 12 hours.

Mix and cover

  1. Drain the vegetables from the vinegar and add the chopped peppers, turmeric, mustard seeds, mixed mustard, allspice, cloves, black pepper, sweet oil, and brown sugar.

  2. Mix all ingredients together and cover with vinegar.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Turmeric + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Turmeric + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 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

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the pickle and gives it a crisp, sturdy texture.
Onions
Add bulk and savory sweetness that deepens as the pickle sits.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, vegetal flavor to the pickle.
Brown sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Mustard seeds
Provide a sharp, pungent bite that flavors the pickle.
Red peppers
Add sweetness, color, and a mild vegetal flavor.

The step that matters

Salting and soaking the vegetables. Salt draws water out of the cabbage, celery, and onions, which firms their texture and lets them absorb the vinegar. Draining well before adding the other ingredients keeps the pickle from becoming watery.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, celery, vinegar, pepper, turmeric, mustard, allspice):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, celery, vinegar, pepper, turmeric, mustard, 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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