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Splendid Chow Chow

A pickled vegetable relish made from green tomatoes, cabbage, onions, green peppers, spices, brown sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Splendid Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, cabbage, onions, and green peppers finely.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and let stand overnight.

  3. Drain the water from the mixture.

Cook

  1. Add ground mustard, ground ginger, turmeric, ground cloves, ground cinnamon, celery seed, and brown sugar, mix well and cover with vinegar.

  2. Boil until done.

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. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  5. Turmeric + clovetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,876 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 and tart body of the relish once cooked down.
Cabbage
Adds crisp-tender texture and bulk to the chopped mixture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the vinegar's acidity.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the mixture and sharpens its flavor.
Celery seed
Contributes a savory, aromatic flavor that complements the spices.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, onion, pepper, mustard, ginger, turmeric, clove):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, onion, pepper, mustard, ginger, turmeric, 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.

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