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Salad

Chow-chow

A pickled relish made from tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, cabbage, spices, mustard, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice the cabbage, tomatoes, onions, and cucumbers.

  2. Sprinkle with salt and let stand for 2 days, draining water daily.

Cook the relish

  1. Boil the vinegar with spices, black pepper, celery seed, sugar, prepared mustard, mustard seed, horseradish, and turmeric.

  2. While boiling, add the cabbage, tomatoes, onions, and cucumbers.

  3. Cook for about 45 minutes.

Finish and jar

  1. When cold, stir in the olive oil.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Mustard + cucumbertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + cabbagetop 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 tart flavor that balances the sweet and spiced vinegar.
Onions
Add bulk and savory sweetness as they soften during cooking.
Cabbage
Adds crisp texture and body to the relish after salting and cooking.
Cucumbers
Add crunch and fresh body that holds up through the long cook.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the relish its sharp flavor.
White mustard seed
Adds pungent flavor and a slight bite to the vinegar brine.

The step that matters

Salting and draining the vegetables for 2 days. Salt draws water out of the cut vegetables, so they stay crisp and do not dilute the vinegar. Draining the water daily keeps the relish from becoming soggy and watery.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, mustard, celery, cucumber, cinnamon, cabbage, 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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