Skip to main content
Main

Chow Chow

A preserved cabbage relish with peppers, mustard seed, horseradish, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mustard and radish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 297 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cabbages as for slaw.

  2. Chop the peppers very fine.

Layer and pickle

  1. In a jar, layer cabbage, a little salt, then peppers.

  2. Sprinkle horseradish and mustard seed over each layer.

  3. Repeat until all ingredients are used.

  4. Fill jars with cold vinegar, dissolving 2 ounces of sugar in each quart.

Serve

  1. Serve with hot or cold meat.

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. Mustard + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cabbage + radishtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together106 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  4. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 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

Cabbages
Form the bulk of the relish and give it a crisp, crunchy texture.
Peppers
Add pungent flavour and colour, with finely chopped pieces spreading heat through the jar.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent bite that mellows as the relish sits in the vinegar.
Horse-radish
Contributes a sharp, pungent heat that complements the cabbage and peppers.
Cold vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid, adding acidity that keeps the relish tart and stable.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Layering with salt and cold vinegar. Salt draws water out of the cabbage and peppers, and the cold vinegar then covers them so the vegetables stay crisp. Using too little vinegar or leaving pieces exposed can let the relish spoil.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, mustard, horse, radish, vinegar, sugar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Cucumberfits about as well
  3. Broccolifits about as well
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, mustard, horse, radish, vinegar, 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.

You might also like

Horseradish SauceHorseradish Sauce23 recipesHorseradish ButterHorseradish Butter6 recipesRed CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesStewed CabbageStewed Cabbage58 recipes