Skip to main content
Drink

Chow-chow

A pickled relish made from celery, tomatoes, onions, peppers, cucumbers, cabbage, salt, sugar, and spices, simmered for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tomato and cucumber are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,405 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the celery, green tomatoes, white onions, green peppers, cucumbers, and cabbage finely.

  2. In a kettle, combine the chopped vegetables with ½ cup coarse sea salt and stir.

Cook and bottle

  1. Add 1 pound of sugar, 1 ounce of turmeric, 1 ounce of whole spice, 1 ounce of cinnamon, 1 ounce of allspice, 1 ounce of black pepper, and ½ ounce of cloves.

  2. Simmer the mixture for 2 hours.

  3. Bottle the chow-chow.

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. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Celery + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Cucumber + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide tart acidity and bulk that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the relish by binding water.
Cabbage
Supplies bulk and a firm texture that holds up during long simmering.
White onions
Add savory depth and aroma as they soften and release their flavor.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Cauliflowerfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, tomato, pepper, cucumber, cabbage, sugar, 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

Cucumber PicklesCucumber Pickles25 recipesCinnamon TinctureCinnamon Tincture10 recipesVegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipes