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Chow-chow

A pickled vegetable relish made with onions, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, cauliflower, peppers, mustard, flour, sugar, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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. Peel the onions, break the beans into small pieces, and slice the tomatoes and cucumbers.

  2. Separate the cauliflower into florets and place all vegetables in strong brine overnight.

  3. Scald the cauliflower in milk before placing it in brine.

Make the sauce and pickle

  1. In a pot, combine mustard, flour, sugar, and vinegar, and bring to a scald.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the pickles and add spices to taste.

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

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

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

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

  4. Beans + cauliflowertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

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

  5. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 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

Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that gives the pickle its tang and helps preserve it.
Flour
Thickens the hot mustard mixture so it coats the vegetables.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard.
English mustard
Adds pungent, sharp flavor to the sauce.
Cauliflower
Serves as a main vegetable that adds bulk and firm texture to the pickle.

The step that matters

Bringing the flour mixture to a scald. Flour thickens the sauce only when heated with liquid, and it can clump if not stirred well. Lumps leave the sauce uneven and pasty, so keep it moving while it heats.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

More chow-chow recipes

Tomato 9Relish 8Mustard 6Virginia 5Pickle 4 See all 29 →

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