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Chow Chow

A pickled relish of cucumbers, onions, cauliflower, peppers, tomatoes, celery, mustard, curry, turmeric, brown sugar, flour, and vinegar.

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. Combine cucumbers, onions, green cucumbers, cauliflower, green peppers, green tomatoes, and celery in a weak brine overnight in cold water.

  2. The next morning, scald the mixture in the same water and drain thoroughly.

Make the dressing

  1. In a separate bowl, mix mustard, curry powder, turmeric, brown sugar, and flour.

  2. Add vinegar to the mixture and scald until it thickens.

Combine and bottle

  1. Combine the thickened mixture with the vegetables and bottle or can.

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. 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
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that balances the sweetness and vinegar.
Flour
Thickens the dressing as it scalds, giving the pickle a smooth, coating body.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that offsets the acidity of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and sharpens the flavor.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow color and a mild, earthy aroma.

The step that matters

Scalding the dressing until it thickens. Flour thickens only when heated enough to gelatinize its starch, so the mixture must be scalded fully. Stopping early leaves a thin, runny dressing, while overheating can scorch the flour and sugar.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

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