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Salad

Chow-chow

A boiled relish of green tomatoes, onions, pickled beans, cucumbers, peppers, cabbage, mustard, celery seeds, vinegar, and olive oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, onions, pickled beans, cucumbers, peppers, and cabbage.

  2. Season the mixture with mustard and celery seeds.

Cook

  1. Cover the mixture with vinegar and boil for 2 hours, stirring continually.

  2. While hot, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil.

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. Tomato + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  5. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 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 bulk and a tart, firm body that holds up during long boiling.
White onions
Add savory flavour and aroma that deepen during long cooking.
Cucumbers
Contribute crisp texture and moisture to the relish.
Green peppers
Add fresh, grassy flavour and a bit of crunch to the mixture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the relish its sharp tang.
Olive oil
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished relish.

The step that matters

Boiling for 2 hours while stirring continually. Long boiling softens the vegetables and drives off excess moisture, while constant stirring prevents the mixture from scorching on the bottom of the pot. Stopping early leaves the relish watery and raw-tasting.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, beans, cucumber, pepper, cabbage, mustard, celery. 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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