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Salad

Chow Chow

A pickled relish made from tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, cauliflower, celery, onions, string beans, mustard seed, turmeric, allspice, pepper, cloves, salt, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the vegetables into small pieces.

  2. Cover with salt and let stand for 24 hours, then drain.

Cook and store

  1. Heat the vinegar and spices to boiling point.

  2. Add the vegetables and cook until soft.

  3. Store in airtight containers.

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. Tomato + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cauliflower + beanstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

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

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 body, softening into the relish as they cook.
Cucumbers
Add crisp texture and moisture that the salt draw-out helps firm up.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the relish and gives it its tangy flavor.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp flavor to the spiced vinegar.
Turmeric
Gives the relish its yellow color and a warm, earthy aroma.

The step that matters

Draining the salted vegetables. Salting draws out water from the vegetables; draining well before cooking keeps the vinegar from being diluted and helps the relish stay firm rather than watery.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cucumber, pepper, cauliflower, celery, beans, mustard. 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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