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Chow-chow Pickle

A pickled vegetable mixture of tomatoes, cabbage, onions, peppers, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,645 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chow-chow Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the tomatoes, cabbage, onions, and peppers finely in a large wooden bowl.

  2. Add the salt, cloves, black pepper, and brown sugar to the chopped vegetables.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a vessel and add enough vinegar to cover.

Cook

  1. Boil the mixture slowly 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. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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 of the pickle and release moisture that mingles with the vinegar.
Cabbage
Adds crisp texture and body that holds up during long simmering.
Onions
Contribute savory depth and aroma as they soften during cooking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid and supplies the tangy acidity.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent, nutty flavour when cooked in the vinegar.

The step that matters

Boiling the mixture slowly for 2 hours. Long, gentle simmering softens the chopped vegetables and lets the vinegar and sugar penetrate them. A hard, fast boil can scorch the sugar on the bottom of the pot and make the pickle uneven.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, onion, pepper, clove, mustard, sugar, 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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