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Chow Chow

A pickled vegetable relish made with onions, gherkins, string beans, cauliflower, peppers, mustard, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 687 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Peel the onions.

  2. Halve the gherkins.

  3. String the beans.

  4. Cut the cauliflowers into pieces.

  5. Place all the vegetables in a wooden tray.

  6. Sprinkle the vegetables generously with coarse sea salt.

  7. Wash the vegetables thoroughly.

  8. Drain the vegetables.

Cook the chow chow

  1. Place the vegetables in cold vinegar, except for the red peppers.

  2. Boil the mixture slowly for 20 minutes, stirring frequently.

Jar and seal

  1. Melt wax in a deep dish.

  2. As you fill and cork the jars, dip them into the wax.

  3. Add the red peppers to the jars for presentation.

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

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

  2. Beans + cauliflowertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Beans + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 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. Onion + beanstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 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

Cider or wine vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that gives the pickle its tang and helps preserve the vegetables.
Small white onions
Soften during simmering, adding sweetness and savoury body to the mixture.
Cauliflowers
Firm florets hold their shape and absorb the vinegar flavour during simmering.
Gherkins
Salting draws out water so the pickles keep a firmer bite after cooking.
Mustard seed
Adds a pungent, sharp flavour that mellows as the pickle cooks.
Ground mustard
Adds sharp, pungent heat that blends into the vinegar and spreads through the vegetables.

The step that matters

Washing and draining after salting. Salt draws water out of the vegetables, which keeps them crisp in the vinegar. Rinsing and draining well removes surface salt so the finished pickle is not overly salty.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, cauliflower, pepper, mustard, cider):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, cauliflower, pepper, mustard, cider. 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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Relish 49Pickle 25Pickles 16Tomato 9Cucumber 4Salad 3 See all 120 →

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