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Chow-chow

A pickled vegetable relish made from cauliflower, cucumber, mustard, oil, vinegar, and red pepper.

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. Cut the cauliflowers and cucumbers into small pieces.

  2. Soak the cauliflowers and cucumbers in strong salt water overnight.

  3. Rinse the vegetables well.

Cook and bottle

  1. Boil the vegetables in vinegar until tender.

  2. Mix the ground mustard and salad oil with enough vinegar to create a smooth mixture, then stir it into the boiling vegetables.

  3. Just before removing from heat, add the fine red pepper.

  4. Bottle the chow-chow.

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

Cauliflowers
Provide the bulk and firm bite of the pickled vegetable mix.
Small cucumbers
Add crisp texture and a fresh, briny body to the relish.
Ground mustard
Contributes sharp pungent flavour that carries through the vinegar.
Salad oil
Carries the mustard flavour and helps the mustard mix smoothly.
Fine red pepper
Adds heat and colour to the finished relish.

The step that matters

Mixing the mustard paste into the boiling vegetables. Ground mustard mixed smoothly with oil and vinegar avoids lumps and keeps the sauce evenly flavoured. Adding the red pepper only just before removing from heat preserves its sharper, fresher flavour, since prolonged boiling dulls it.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

More chow-chow recipes

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