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Tomato Chow-chow

A pickled tomato relish with green tomatoes, peppers, onions, salt, vinegar, horseradish, cinnamon, allspice, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, green peppers, and onions.

  2. Stir in the coarse sea salt and let stand overnight.

  3. Pour off the water.

Cook

  1. Put the mixture in a kettle and add enough vinegar to cover.

  2. Add the horseradish, cinnamon, allspice, and sugar.

  3. Cook until soft.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Horseradish + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Horseradish + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together515 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + horseradishtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the chow-chow and break down into a soft, relish-like texture when cooked.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma, and soften into the body of the relish during cooking.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the chopped vegetables overnight, firming them and reducing excess liquid.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the relish and balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that offsets the sharpness of the vinegar.
Horseradish
Contributes a sharp, pungent heat that mellows during cooking.

The step that matters

Cook until soft. Cooking must run long enough to soften the vegetables fully and let the vinegar and sugar blend. Stopping early leaves a crunchy, sharp relish that has not developed its texture or balance.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, vinegar, horseradish, cinnamon, allspice, sugar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, vinegar, horseradish, cinnamon, allspice, sugar. 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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