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A pickled tomato relish made with green tomatoes, onions, peppers, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, onions, and green peppers finely.

  2. Sprinkle with ½ pint of coarse sea salt and let stand overnight.

Cook and pack

  1. In the morning, drain the mixture and cover with cold cider vinegar.

  2. Cook slowly for 1 hour, then drain again and pack into jars.

Make the spice mixture

  1. In a separate bowl, mix brown sugar, mustard, cinnamon, black pepper, and horseradish with enough vinegar to cover.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the relish and soften into a tender, spoonable texture when cooked.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aroma that deepens as they cook.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the relish.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard.
Mustard
Adds pungent, sharp flavor that gives the relish its characteristic bite.
Horseradish
Adds a hot, pungent note that stands out against the sweet and sour elements.

The step that matters

Salting overnight. Salt draws water out of the chopped vegetables through osmosis. Draining after the rest removes that liquid, so the relish stays firm rather than watery and the vinegar seasons it more evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, cider, vinegar, sugar, mustard, cinnamon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, cider, vinegar, sugar, mustard, cinnamon. 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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