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Chow Chow

A pickled cucumber relish made with cucumbers, onions, vinegar, sugar, flour, mustard, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and cucumber 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 ↓

Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Soak cucumbers in brine for 2 to 3 days.

  2. Scald the remaining cucumbers in strong salt and water.

  3. Add pepper, whole cloves, allspice, and stick cinnamon as desired.

Make the dressing

  1. In a pot, scald vinegar, brown sugar, flour, and ground mustard, stirring constantly.

  2. Once well mixed, pour over the pickles.

Bottle

  1. Bottle in wide-mouthed bottles or glass cans and seal.

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. Cauliflower + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives the chow chow its sharp flavour.
Brown sugar
Balances the vinegar's acidity with sweetness and adds depth to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the scalded vinegar mixture so it clings to the vegetables.
Ground mustard
Adds pungent mustard flavour and colour to the dressing.
Small cucumbers
Form the crisp, firm body of the pickle after brining.

The step that matters

Scalding the vinegar mixture with flour. Flour must be fully blended in while stirring constantly; otherwise it clumps and leaves lumps in the thickened dressing. Scalding also helps the sauce coat the vegetables evenly.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, cucumber, vinegar, sugar, flour, mustard, pepper. 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.

More chow chow recipes

Relish 49Pickle 25Pickles 16Tomato 9Cucumber 4Salad 3 See all 120 →

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