Skip to main content
Drink

Tomato Chow Chow

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 the vegetables

  1. Combine chopped tomatoes, onions, and green peppers in a large bowl.

  2. Sprinkle with salt and let it stand overnight.

  3. Drain off the brine and cover with vinegar.

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

Add the spice mixture and seal

  1. Mix sugar, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, black pepper, ground mustard, and horseradish with enough vinegar to combine.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the packed vegetables in jars and seal tightly.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 its tart, fresh-vegetable body.
Onions
Add savory depth and aromatic flavor as they soften during cooking.
Sugar
Balances the vinegar's acidity and adds sweetness to the relish.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid, adding sharpness that keeps the relish stable in jars.
Horseradish
Contributes a sharp, pungent heat that mellows during cooking.

The step that matters

Salting and draining the vegetables overnight. Salt draws water out of the chopped vegetables by osmosis. Draining off the brine removes that liquid, so the relish stays firm and the jars are less likely to spoil or turn watery.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

You might also like

Raspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesSugar VinegarSugar Vinegar20 recipesCinnamon TinctureCinnamon Tincture10 recipesVegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipes