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Preserve

Chow Chow

A pickled relish of celery, green tomatoes, onions, and bell peppers with vinegar, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard 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. Grind the celery, green tomatoes, onions, and bell peppers together.

  2. Sprinkle with salt and let sit overnight.

  3. In the morning, drain the mixture.

Cook and seal

  1. Add vinegar, sugar, mustard seed, and celery seed.

  2. In a bag, combine cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg.

  3. Add the spice bag to the mixture and cook for 20 minutes.

  4. Seal in jars.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  5. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 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 tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the chow chow and a tart, fresh-vegetable body.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aroma as they soften during cooking.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the relish and sharpens its flavor.
Sugar
Balances the vinegar's sharpness and adds sweetness.
Mustard seed
Contributes a pungent, slightly bitter bite that defines the relish.

The step that matters

Draining after the overnight salt rest. Salt draws water out of the chopped vegetables; draining well removes that liquid so the relish stays thick rather than watery once cooked with vinegar and sugar.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, tomato, pepper, vinegar, sugar, mustard, clove. 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 →

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