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French Chow Chow

A pickled vegetable relish made with cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, cauliflower, peppers, mustard, turmeric, flour, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 584 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

French Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine the large cucumbers, small cucumbers, button onions, green tomatoes, cauliflower, and peppers in a large bowl.

  2. Prepare a weak brine by dissolving 1 cup of coarse sea salt in 1 gallon of water.

  3. Pour the brine over the vegetables and let them soak for 24 hours.

  4. After 24 hours, scald the vegetables in the same brine and then drain them.

Make the dressing and combine

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the ground mustard, turmeric, flour, and sugar.

  2. Moisten the dry ingredients with a little cider vinegar, then gradually add the remaining vinegar while stirring until smooth and thick.

  3. Add the drained vegetables to the mustard mixture and stir to combine.

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. Cucumber + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

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

  2. Cauliflower + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together514 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Cucumbers
Provide the crisp, watery bulk that stays crunchy after pickling.
Cauliflower
Adds firm texture and absorbs the tangy, spiced dressing.
Ground mustard
Supplies sharp, pungent flavor that defines the relish's bite.
Flour
Thickens the mustard mixture so it clings to the vegetables.
Cider vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharp acidity and mustard with sweetness.

The step that matters

Adding the vinegar to the mustard paste. Mixing the dry ingredients with a little vinegar first makes a smooth paste; adding all the liquid at once causes lumps in the flour and mustard, and the thickening starch needs steady stirring to cook evenly into a smooth, thick dressing.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, tomato, cauliflower, pepper, mustard, turmeric, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, tomato, cauliflower, pepper, mustard, turmeric, flour. 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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