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Salad

Chow Chow

A pickled relish of green tomatoes, peppers, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the green tomatoes and sprinkle salt over them. Let them stand overnight.

  2. In the morning, squeeze out the juice thoroughly.

Make and bottle

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped tomatoes, vinegar, horseradish, green peppers, mustard, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and black pepper.

  2. Bottle the mixture for use.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Salted and drained, they release moisture so the relish stays firmer and less watery.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the relish.
Horseradish
Adds pungent heat that mellows and gives the relish its sharp bite.
Green peppers
Contribute fresh, slightly bitter vegetal flavor and crisp texture.

The step that matters

Squeezing out the salted tomato juice. Salt draws water out of the sliced green tomatoes by osmosis. Squeezing out the released juice thoroughly keeps the finished relish from becoming thin and watery.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, horseradish, pepper, mustard, 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.

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