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Dutch Chow Chow

A pickled vegetable relish made with tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions, cauliflower, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and cucumber 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 ↓

Dutch Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and onions (if large) into small pieces and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

  2. Let stand overnight.

  3. Scald the cauliflower for about five minutes, then break it into pieces.

  4. Combine all the vegetables.

  5. Let them stand until morning.

  6. Scald them in their own brine.

Make the dressing and pack

  1. Scald the vinegar with a bag of spices.

  2. Mix mustard, turmeric, and flour with cold vinegar.

  3. Stir the mixture into the hot vinegar.

  4. Pour the mixture over the pickles.

  5. Store in a covered 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. Cauliflower + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

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

  2. Turmeric + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together514 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Turmeric + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Turmeric + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the pickle and firm texture when salted and held.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, firming them and creating the brine.
Mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that deepens as the pickle sits.
Flour
Thickens the mustard mixture so the dressing clings to the vegetables.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tang.
Turmeric
Gives the chow chow its bright yellow color and earthy flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour-mustard mixture into the hot vinegar. Flour mixed into hot liquid can clump; blending it smoothly in cold vinegar first lets it dissolve and thicken evenly as it heats.

Swap the onion

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

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

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