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
Put cucumbers, onions, cauliflower, and green peppers in brine for 24 hours.
Scald the vegetables in the brine.
Make the sauce
In a bowl, mix mustard, flour, curry powder, and sugar.
Wet the mixture with vinegar to prevent lumping.
Stir the mixture into boiling vinegar and cook until it thickens.
Combine and jar
Pour the thickened mixture over the pickles.
Transfer to glass jars.
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.
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Cucumber + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together584 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Cauliflower + mustardtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together687 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,281 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,259 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,067 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Mustard
- Adds sharp, pungent flavor that defines the sauce.
- Flour
- Thickens the vinegar sauce so it coats the vegetables.
- Sugar
- Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
- Vinegar
- Provides acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickles and sauce.
- Curry powder
- Contributes warm, aromatic spice to the sauce.
The step that matters
Wet the mixture with vinegar to prevent lumping. Flour clumps when it meets hot liquid without being dispersed first. Wetting it with cold vinegar into a smooth paste lets the starch hydrate evenly, so the sauce thickens smoothly.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, cauliflower, pepper, vinegar, mustard, flour, sugar):
- Horseradishfits better
- Radishfits better
- Broccolifits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cauliflower, pepper, vinegar, mustard, flour, 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.
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