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English Chow-chow

A pickled vegetable mixture of green beans, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, cauliflower, and mustard, seasoned with mustard seeds, ground mustard, turmeric, and oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

English Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Scald the beans, onions, peppers, tomatoes, cauliflower, and cucumbers in vinegar.

  2. Drain the vegetables through a colander.

  3. Place the drained vegetables in a jar.

Make the mustard sauce

  1. Heat fresh vinegar in a pot until it covers the vegetables.

  2. Add all the mustard seeds and two-thirds of the ground mustard to the vinegar.

  3. Boil the vinegar mixture for a few minutes.

  4. Mix the remaining ground mustard, turmeric, and oil together.

  5. Stir the mixture into the boiling vinegar.

Pour and finish

  1. Pour the mixture over the vegetables.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, 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

Green beans
Form the bulk of the pickle and keep a firm, crisp bite after scalding.
White and black mustard seed
Provide the sharp, pungent flavor that defines the chow-chow.
Yellow ground mustard
Thickens the vinegar sauce and adds mustard flavor that coats the vegetables.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the vegetables and carries the mustard flavor.
Sweet oil
Adds fat that softens the mustard's bitterness and gives the sauce body.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its bright yellow color and a mild, earthy flavor.

The step that matters

Boiling the mustard sauce. Ground mustard must be heated briefly in the vinegar to develop its full flavor and thicken the sauce. Stirring it smoothly before pouring prevents lumps and keeps the mixture even.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

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