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Chow Chow

A pickled relish of cauliflower, beans, tomatoes, peppers, and gherkins in a vinegar and sugar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Prepare a brine with enough water to cover the gherkins and beans, adding 2 cups of coarse sea salt.

  2. Pour the brine over the vegetables and let stand overnight.

  3. Measure the brine and bring it to a boil with the piece of alum.

  4. Pour the hot brine over the vegetables and discard the brine once cool.

Make the sauce

  1. For each quart of vinegar used, boil 1 scant cup of brown sugar.

  2. Once boiling, mix in 3.5 cups of flour and ½ pound of dry mustard, cooking until thick and smooth.

  3. Remove from heat and mix in 3 jars of German mustard.

  4. Pour this mixture over the pickles and let cool completely.

Bottle

  1. Add a small piece of horseradish root to each bottle before sealing.

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. Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cauliflower + beanstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Beans + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and body to the sauce that balances the vinegar's acidity.
Flour
Thickens the boiled vinegar and sugar mixture into a smooth, sauce-like coating.
German mustard
Adds sharp mustard flavor and helps give the sauce its pungent character.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickles their tang.

The step that matters

Cooking the sauce until thick and smooth. Flour must be fully cooked in the boiling vinegar and sugar mixture; if it is undercooked or added to liquid that is not boiling, it stays lumpy and tastes raw-floury. Stirring keeps it from scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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