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Mrs. Ellas’s Chow Chow

A pickled relish of tomatoes, onions, peppers, cucumbers, and cabbage seasoned with spices and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and cucumber are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,405 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mrs. Ellas’s Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine chopped tomatoes, onions, green peppers, cucumbers, and cabbage in a bowl.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and let it sit overnight.

  3. In the morning, drain off the brine.

Season and cook

  1. Add celery seed, turmeric, cayenne pepper, brown sugar, cinnamon, allspice, black pepper, and cloves.

  2. Pour in enough vinegar to cover the mixture.

  3. Boil slowly for two hours.

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. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  2. Celery + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Cucumber + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Provides bulk and a firm, crisp texture that holds up during long simmering.
Cucumbers
Supply crunch and water that the salt draws out during the overnight rest.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the vegetables, firming them and helping preserve the relish.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the relish and gives it its tangy flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and browns slightly during cooking.

The step that matters

Draining the brine before adding spices and vinegar. Salt has drawn a lot of liquid from the vegetables overnight. Draining it off keeps the relish from becoming overly salty and helps it cook into a thicker, more concentrated texture rather than a watery one.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, cucumber, cabbage, celery, turmeric, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, cucumber, cabbage, celery, turmeric, 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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