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English Chow Chow

A preserved vegetable relish made with green beans, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, cauliflower, mustard seeds, ground mustard, turmeric, oil, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 584 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

English Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Scald the green beans, onions, peppers, cauliflower, tomatoes, and cucumbers in vinegar, then drain through a colander.

  2. Place the vegetables in a jar.

Make the mustard sauce

  1. In a pot, heat fresh vinegar sufficient to cover the vegetables and add all the mustard seeds and two-thirds of the ground mustard, then let it boil for a few minutes.

  2. Mix the remaining ground mustard, turmeric, and oil together, then stir into the boiling vinegar mixture.

  3. Boil once more and pour over the vegetables in the jar.

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

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

  2. Cauliflower + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together514 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 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

Mustard seed
Provides the sharp, pungent flavor that defines the pickle.
Ground mustard
Dissolves into the hot vinegar to thicken the sauce and add sharpness.
Turmeric powder
Gives the pickle its characteristic yellow color.
Sweet oil
Adds fat and richness that coats the vegetables and softens the sharp vinegar.
Green beans
Form the crisp, bulky vegetable base of the pickle.

The step that matters

Boiling the vinegar mustard mixture. Mustard flour thickens only when heated in liquid, so the sauce must be brought to a full boil before pouring; stirring in the turmeric and oil mixture and boiling again ensures even color and a smooth, cohesive sauce over the vegetables.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (green beans, tomato, cucumber, pepper, cauliflower, mustard, turmeric):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against green beans, tomato, cucumber, pepper, cauliflower, mustard, turmeric. 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.

More chow chow recipes

Relish 49Pickle 25Pickles 16Tomato 9Cucumber 4Salad 3 See all 120 →

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