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English Chow Chow

A pickled vegetable mixture of green tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, cauliflower, and peppers, seasoned with mustard, turmeric, sugar, flour, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

English Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine the green tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, cauliflower, and peppers in a large bowl.

  2. Add enough weak brine to cover the vegetables and let them stand overnight.

  3. Scald the vegetables in the same brine.

  4. Drain the vegetables.

Make the dressing and serve

  1. In a separate pot, mix the ground mustard, turmeric powder, sugar, flour, and vinegar.

  2. Heat the mixture until it thickens.

  3. Pour the thickened mixture over the pickles.

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 + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together514 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

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 and firm texture of the pickle.
Flour
Thickens the mustard mixture so it coats the vegetables.
Ground mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor to the dressing.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard with sweetness.

The step that matters

Heat the mustard mixture until it thickens. Flour thickens only when heated enough to gelatinize its starch. Stop too early and the dressing stays thin and runny; keep stirring so the flour does not lump or scorch on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the onion

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

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

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