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Chow-chow

A pickled vegetable relish made with green tomatoes, cabbage, peppers, cauliflower, salt, sugar, mustard seed, black pepper, celery seed, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 305 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, cabbage, red peppers, and cauliflower finely.

  2. Sprinkle with ½ pint coarse sea salt and let stand for 24 hours.

  3. Drain thoroughly.

Cook

  1. Place in a kettle with 2 pounds brown sugar, 1 ounce each of white mustard seed, black pepper, and celery seed.

  2. Cover with strong vinegar and boil until clear.

  3. Add onion if desired.

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. Cabbage + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 a tart, fresh-vegetable base.
Cabbage
Adds crisp body that holds its texture through pickling.
Cauliflower
Adds firm pieces that keep their bite in the vinegar brine.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and salt.
Strong vinegar
Acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the relish its tang.

The step that matters

Draining after the salt rest. Salt draws water out of the chopped vegetables. Draining thoroughly removes that liquid so the relish stays firm and the vinegar and sugar syrup are not diluted.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, pepper, cauliflower, sugar, mustard, celery, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, pepper, cauliflower, sugar, mustard, celery, vinegar. 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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