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Chow Chow

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 the tomatoes, onions, peppers, cucumbers, and cabbage finely.

  2. Sprinkle the salt over the chopped vegetables and let them stand overnight.

  3. In the morning, drain off the brine.

Cook

  1. Add the celery seed, turmeric, brown sugar, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves to the vegetables.

  2. Cover the mixture with vinegar and boil 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. 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

Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, softening them and leaving them crisp-tender rather than soggy.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and the warm spices.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the relish its tang.
Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the relish, contributing body and a firm texture after cooking.

The step that matters

Drain off the brine in the morning. Salt pulls liquid out of the vegetables overnight. Pouring off that brine removes excess salt and water, so the relish cooks thick and is not overly salty or watery.

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.

More chow chow recipes

Relish 49Pickle 25Pickles 16Tomato 9Cucumber 4Salad 3 See all 120 →

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