Skip to main content
Main

Chow Chow

A pickled relish of boiled vegetables, mustard seeds, turmeric, onions, and vinegar, sweetened with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 24 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cauliflower and cucumber 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

Make the vegetable base

  1. Boil cauliflower, green tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, celery, mustard seeds, turmeric, small onions, and cider vinegar for 25 minutes.

  2. Remove from heat, add salad oil and grated horseradish, and sweeten to taste.

Add the mustard and vegetables

  1. In a separate bowl, soak sliced cucumbers in salt water for a short time.

  2. Mix ground mustard with a little cold vinegar until smooth.

  3. Heat vinegar (do not boil) and stir in the mustard mixture.

  4. Add soaked vegetables, lima beans, green corn, string beans, and nasturtiums, mixing well.

  5. Boil everything together briefly and seal in Mason jars while hot.

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

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

  2. Cauliflower + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together514 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Mustard seed
Provides the sharp, pungent flavor that defines the chow chow.
Cider vinegar
Acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its tang.
Cucumbers
Crisp texture and fresh body that holds up in the pickling liquid.
Cauliflower
Firm pieces that absorb the vinegar and add bulk and texture.
Horseradish
Adds a sharp, heat-like bite that rounds out the mustard flavor.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its characteristic yellow color and earthy flavor.

The step that matters

Heat the vinegar without boiling before adding the mustard mixture. Boiling vinegar can drive off aroma and make ground mustard turn bitter, while gentle heat keeps the mustard smooth and flavorful.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, tomato, cucumber, pepper, celery, mustard, turmeric. 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 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes