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A pickled vegetable relish made with tomatoes, cauliflower, cucumbers, horseradish, spices, vinegar, and ground mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Layer the sliced tomatoes, cauliflower, cucumbers, horseradish, and spices in a stone jar, sprinkling a little salt between layers.

  2. Let it stand for 24 hours, then drain off the water.

Cook and jar

  1. Transfer the mixture to a porcelain-lined kettle and cover with vinegar.

  2. Boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Wet the ground mustard with cold vinegar and stir it in last.

  4. Remove from heat immediately to avoid bitterness.

  5. Pack into jars and cover.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Cauliflower + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

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

  4. Cauliflower + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together139 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the relish and a tart, firm base that holds its texture.
Cauliflower
Adds crisp texture and bulk that holds up through cooking.
Cucumbers
Add moisture and a fresh, crisp bite to the relish.
Horseradish
Contributes sharp heat and pungency that mellows during cooking.
Ground mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor and helps thicken the vinegar sauce.
Mustard seed
Provides pungency and a gentle crunch to the finished relish.

The step that matters

Remove from heat immediately after adding the mustard. Ground mustard turns bitter when overheated for long, so the mixture should come off the heat promptly once the mustard is stirred in.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, cauliflower, cucumber, horseradish, clove, cinnamon, mustard):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cauliflower, cucumber, horseradish, clove, cinnamon, mustard. 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

Relish 49Pickle 25Pickles 16Tomato 9Cucumber 4Salad 3 See all 120 →

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