Skip to main content
Main

Chow Chow

Chow Chow is a relish made from tomatoes, cabbage, pickles, onions, red peppers, brown sugar, mustard seeds, ground mustard, celery seed, turmeric, and apple vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Sprinkle chopped green tomatoes with coarse sea salt and let stand overnight.

  2. Drain and press out all the water from the tomatoes.

Cook

  1. In a large kettle, combine the tomatoes, cabbage, pickles, onions, red peppers, brown sugar, white mustard seed, ground mustard, celery seed, and turmeric.

  2. Cover the mixture with apple vinegar and boil for 30 minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Green tomatoes
Provide the main bulk; salting and pressing remove water so the relish keeps its body.
Cabbage
Adds crisp texture and bulk that holds up through the long boil.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma that mellow as they cook in the vinegar.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the vinegar and pickles.
Apple vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the mixture and brightens its flavor.
White mustard seed
Contributes sharp, pungent flavor that softens and mellows during boiling.

The step that matters

Draining the salted tomatoes. Salting draws water out of the tomatoes; if they are not pressed dry, the extra liquid dilutes the vinegar and sugar, leaving the chow chow watery and less well preserved.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, onion, pepper, sugar, mustard, celery, turmeric. 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.

More chow chow recipes

Relish 49Pickle 25Pickles 16Tomato 9Cucumber 4Salad 3 See all 120 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesRed CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipes