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Uncooked Chow Chow

A preserved vegetable salad made with tomatoes, cabbage, peppers, celery, onions, salt, vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Uncooked Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the tomatoes, cabbage, peppers, celery, and onions.

  2. Add 1 cup salt and let sit overnight.

  3. Drain or squeeze dry the next day.

Season and store

  1. Add 2 quarts vinegar, 2 pounds sugar, 1 tablespoon cinnamon, 1 tablespoon cloves, and 2 tablespoons mustard.

  2. Ensure the mixture is covered with vinegar; add more if necessary.

  3. Store in a stone jar or other container.

  4. This will keep all winter or longer.

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 + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

  5. Celery + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,009 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the relish and release moisture that the salt draws out.
Cabbage
Adds crisp body that holds its texture through long pickling.
White sugar
Sweetens and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Acidifies the mixture, preserving it and giving it tang.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor to the pickled vegetables.

The step that matters

Drain or squeeze dry the next day.. Salted vegetables release a lot of liquid overnight. Removing it well keeps the chow chow from becoming watery and lets it absorb the vinegar and spices evenly.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cabbage, pepper, celery, vinegar, sugar, cinnamon. 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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