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An Excellent Chow Chow Pickle

A pickled vegetable mixture of cabbage, celery, onions, peppers, spices, and sweet oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

An Excellent Chow Chow Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice the cabbage, celery, and onions finely, then salt them well.

  2. After 24 hours, drain the vegetables and cover them with vinegar for 12 hours.

Combine and pickle

  1. Drain the vinegar and add the chopped red and green peppers.

  2. Mix in the turmeric, mustard seeds, mixed mustard, allspice, cloves, black pepper, sweet oil, and brown sugar.

  3. Combine everything well and cover with vinegar.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Turmeric + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Turmeric + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 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 crisp, sliced texture after soaking.
Onions
Add savoury sharpness and bulk that softens slightly during the salting and soaking.
Celery
Contributes crunch and a fresh, vegetal flavour to the mixed vegetables.
Mustard seeds
Provide a pungent, sharp bite that develops as the pickle sits.
Brown sugar
Balances the vinegar's acidity with sweetness and deepens the colour.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving and acidic medium that softens the vegetables and flavours the pickle.

The step that matters

Salting and draining the vegetables. Salting draws water out of the sliced vegetables by osmosis. Draining well before adding vinegar keeps the pickle crisp and stops excess liquid from diluting the brine.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, celery, vinegar, pepper, turmeric, mustard, allspice):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, celery, vinegar, pepper, turmeric, mustard, allspice. 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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