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Chow-chow

A pickled vegetable relish made with cucumbers, onions, cauliflower, green peppers, vinegar, sugar, mustard seed, celery seed, flour, mustard, and turmeric.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Place large cucumbers, large onions, small cucumbers, small onions, cauliflower, and green peppers in separate dishes.

  2. Cover with hot brine and let sit overnight.

Make the relish

  1. Drain the vegetables and add vinegar, sugar, mustard seed, and celery seed to a pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. In a bowl, make a paste with flour, mustard, and turmeric.

  4. Stir the paste into the boiling mixture gently and let it boil for 1-2 minutes.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Pepper + celerytop 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

Flour
Thickens the boiling liquid so the relish becomes a spoonable, thick texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the relish its tang.
Cauliflower
Adds bulk and a firm, crisp texture to the relish.
Mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, pungent flavour that defines the relish.

The step that matters

Stir the paste into the boiling mixture gently. Flour mixed into hot liquid can clump if added carelessly. Stirring gently while the mixture is boiling helps the starch disperse evenly and thicken smoothly.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cauliflower, pepper, vinegar, sugar, mustard, celery. 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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