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Chow-chow

A pickled vegetable relish made with green tomatoes, onions, peppers, cucumbers, cabbage, spices, vinegar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and cucumber are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,405 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop all the vegetables finely.

  2. Sprinkle 1 cup of coarse sea salt over the vegetables and let them stand overnight.

Pickle and cook

  1. In the morning, drain off the brine.

  2. Add the seasoning ingredients and vinegar to cover the vegetables.

  3. Boil the mixture for 2 hours.

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 + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  2. Celery + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Cucumber + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  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

Green tomatoes
Provide bulk and body, and release liquid that becomes part of the relish.
Cabbage
Adds crisp texture and bulk that holds up through long simmering.
White onions
Add savory sharpness and aroma that mellows during cooking.
Green cucumbers
Contribute crunch and fresh vegetable flavor to the relish.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables through osmosis, firming them and seasoning the relish.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the vinegar's acidity.

The step that matters

Salting overnight and draining the brine. Salt pulls water out of the chopped vegetables; draining that brine before cooking keeps the relish from becoming watery and overly salty, while the salted vegetables stay firmer through the long boil.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, cucumber, cabbage, celery, turmeric, sugar. 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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