Skip to main content
Main

Chow-chow

A pickled relish made from cucumbers or tomatoes, cabbage, onions, peppers, and spices, sweetened with sugar and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mustard and celery 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 ↓

Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the cucumbers or tomatoes and cabbage.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and let stand for 6 hours.

  3. Press out the water.

  4. Pour boiling water over the sliced onions and let the onions stand for a while, then drain the onions.

Mix and pickle

  1. Mix the drained onions with the cabbage and cucumbers.

  2. Add the spices and mix well.

  3. Boil the sugar in enough vinegar to cover the mixture.

  4. Pour the boiling hot mixture over the pickles.

  5. Add more sugar if desired.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  5. Turmeric + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 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

Cucumbers or tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the relish and release water that salting draws out.
Cabbage
Adds crisp texture that holds up through the pickling process.
Onions
Add sharp, savory flavor that mellows during soaking and pickling.
White mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent bite that mellows in the vinegar.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the relish its tang.

The step that matters

Pressing out the water after salting. Salt draws water out of the cucumbers or tomatoes and cabbage. Pressing out that liquid keeps the relish crisp and stops it from becoming watery in the jar.

Swap the turmeric

The recipe marks turmeric as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, cabbage, onion, pepper, mustard, celery, mace):

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Dillfits about as well
  3. Turmericthe original
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cabbage, onion, pepper, mustard, celery, mace. 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.

You might also like

Cream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesRed CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesStewed CabbageStewed Cabbage58 recipesBaked CabbageBaked Cabbage51 recipes