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Chow Chow

A pickled relish of cauliflower, string beans, cucumbers, onions, and spices in a mustard‑vinegar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and cucumber 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. Boil the cauliflower, string beans, and button onions separately until tender.

  2. Cover the tiny cucumbers with strong salt water and soak for 24 hours.

  3. Mix all the vegetables together in a large bowl.

Make the dressing

  1. In a porcelain-lined kettle, heat the vinegar.

  2. Mix the mustard and turmeric, moisten with a little cold vinegar, then stir into the hot vinegar until it thickens.

  3. Add the sugar, mustard seed, and salad oil, stirring well.

Combine and store

  1. Pour the hot mixture over the vegetables and store in glass or stone 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. Cauliflower + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

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

  2. Turmeric + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together514 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Mustard + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

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

  4. Beans + cauliflowertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, 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

English mustard
Provides the sharp, pungent flavor that defines the pickle and thickens the hot vinegar.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow color and a mild, earthy aroma.
Vinegar
Acidifies the mixture, preserving the vegetables and giving the pickle its tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharp acidity and mustard with sweetness.
Salad oil
Adds fat that softens the sharpness and gives the dressing a smoother mouthfeel.
Cucumbers
Soaking in salt water firms the tiny cucumbers and adds a crisp texture.

The step that matters

Stirring the mustard and turmeric into hot vinegar. Mustard powder mixed into hot liquid can clump or turn bitter if not first moistened with cold vinegar. Moistening it into a smooth paste before adding it lets it disperse evenly and thicken the dressing uniformly.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, turmeric, beans, vinegar, sugar, cauliflower, cucumber. 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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