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Piccallili or Chow-chow

Piccalilli is a pickled relish of tomatoes, onions, celery, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Piccallili or Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop or slice the tomatoes, then sprinkle them with coarse sea salt.

  2. Let the tomatoes stand overnight.

  3. Drain off the water and chop the onion and celery.

  4. Place the tomatoes, onion, and celery in a porcelain-lined kettle.

Cook and store

  1. Sprinkle with sugar, tie the spices in a bag, and add them along with the vinegar.

  2. Cook slowly all day.

  3. Put the mixture in jars or an earthen crock.

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. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  5. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 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

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the relish and release their water when salted, which is drained off.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the mixture and gives it its tang.
Onion
Adds savory depth and body to the mixture as it cooks.
Celery
Adds a fresh, vegetal crunch and body to the cooked mixture.

The step that matters

Cook slowly all day. Long, gentle cooking lets the vegetables soften and the spices and vinegar blend into the mixture. Cooking too fast can scorch the sugar and leave the vegetables unevenly tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cinnamon, allspice, mustard, vinegar, tomato, sugar, celery):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, allspice, mustard, vinegar, tomato, sugar, celery. 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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