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Chow-chow Pickle

A pickled vegetable mixture of cabbage, green tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Chow-chow Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine chopped cabbage, green tomatoes, onions, and green bell peppers in a bowl.

  2. Sprinkle with salt and let stand overnight.

  3. In the morning, drain off the salt water.

Cook

  1. Add vinegar, brown sugar, black pepper, spice, cloves, mace, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, and mustard seed to the vegetables.

  2. Cook all together slowly for 4 hours.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  5. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 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

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the pickle and keeps a firm, crisp bite after cooking.
Green tomatoes
Add tartness and body, helping the relish hold together as it cooks.
Onions
Add savory depth and sweetness that mellows during slow cooking.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the pickle and sharpens its flavor.
Brown sugar
Balances the vinegar's sharpness and adds caramel notes as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cook all together slowly for 4 hours. Long, gentle cooking lets the vinegar and sugar penetrate the vegetables and blend the spices. Cooking too hot or too briefly can leave the vegetables harsh or the flavors separate, and the sugar can scorch on the bottom of the pan if not stirred.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, tomato, onion, pepper, vinegar, sugar, clove):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, tomato, onion, pepper, vinegar, sugar, clove. 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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