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Cucumber Chow-chow

A pickled cucumber relish with peppers, onions, tomatoes, vinegar, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Cucumber Chow-chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Salt the cucumbers and onions separately overnight using 1 pint of salt.

  2. In the morning, drain the cucumbers and onions as dry as possible.

Cook

  1. Add the sugar, celery seed, mustard seed, tomatoes, and peppers to the cucumbers and onions.

  2. Cover the mixture with vinegar and boil until tender and thick.

  3. About 5 minutes before removing from heat, add the mustard moistened with vinegar and stir well while boiling.

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. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

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

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

  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

Cucumbers
Provide the bulk of the pickle and, once salted and drained, a crisp-tender texture.
White onions
Add sharpness and body, softening and sweetening as they cook in the vinegar.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and flavours the pickle.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and body to the sauce as they break down during boiling.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour that carries through the cooked pickle.

The step that matters

Drain the salted cucumbers and onions as dry as possible. Salt draws water out of the vegetables. Removing that liquid before cooking keeps the pickle thick rather than watery and lets it absorb the sweet-sour sauce.

Swap the onion

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

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

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