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Chow Chow

A pickled vegetable mixture of cucumbers, onions, green peppers, and cauliflower in a mustard and sugar dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 the vegetables

  1. Soak the cucumbers, onions, green peppers, and cauliflower in saltwater overnight.

  2. Steam the cauliflower and onions until tender.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix the ground mustard, flour, sugar, and 1 pint of vinegar.

  2. Add the remaining 2 quarts of vinegar to the mixture and scald it.

Combine and cover

  1. Pour the hot dressing over the vegetables, ensuring they are fully covered.

  2. If not covered, make more dressing.

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

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

  3. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the crisp, firm bulk of the pickle after soaking and brining.
Ground mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that gives the dressing its characteristic bite.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the vinegar dressing so it coats the vegetables.
Vinegar
Acidifies the dressing, preserving the vegetables and providing tang.

The step that matters

Scalding the dressing. The dressing must be hot when poured so the flour thickens and mixes smoothly into the vinegar. Pouring cold or lumpy dressing leaves the flour unset and uneven, and the vegetables may not be properly coated.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, pepper, cauliflower, mustard, sugar, flour, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, pepper, cauliflower, mustard, sugar, flour, vinegar. 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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