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Chow Chow

A pickled relish of tomatoes, onions, peppers, vinegar, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, onions, and green peppers together until fine.

  2. Boil the mixture in 3 quarts of vinegar for 3 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture and discard the vinegar.

Make the dressing and combine

  1. In a separate pot, heat 2 quarts of vinegar until scalding hot.

  2. Add the sugar, mixed mustard, ground cloves, allspice, cinnamon, coarse sea salt, and celery seed to the hot vinegar.

  3. Pour the hot mixture over the chopped vegetables.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the relish and their tartness holds up to pickling.
Vinegar
Acidity preserves the vegetables and gives the relish its sharp, tangy flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Onions
Add savory depth and bulk to the chopped mixture.
Mixed mustard
Adds pungent, sharp flavor that complements the spices.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, vinegar, sugar, mustard, clove, 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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