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Chow Chow Pickle

A pickled vegetable relish with cucumbers, onions, cauliflower, beans, tomatoes, peppers, and a curry-flavored syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 584 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Chow Chow Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine all vegetables in strong salt water and let stand overnight.

  2. Drain the vegetables in the morning and bring them to a boil.

Make the sauce and cook

  1. Mix the curry powder, celery seed, turmeric, mustard, flour, and sugar in a little cold vinegar.

  2. Boil the mixture for 15 minutes.

  3. Pour the mixture over the vegetables.

  4. Let the mixture boil well with the vegetables.

  5. Pack the chow chow into glass jars and seal.

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. Cucumber + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Cauliflower + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together514 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  4. Cauliflower + beanstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Cucumbers
Provide the bulk of the pickle and a crisp, fresh texture once cooked.
Cauliflower
Adds firm pieces that hold their shape and absorb the spiced vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tangy flavor.
Flour
Thickens the spiced vinegar so the sauce clings to the vegetables.
Sugar
Balances the sharp vinegar with sweetness.
Coleman's mustard
Contributes sharp pungency and color to the spiced sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the spice mixture to the vinegar. Mixing the spices, flour and sugar in cold vinegar first prevents lumps, so the flour dissolves evenly before boiling thickens the sauce.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cauliflower, beans, tomato, pepper, celery, turmeric. 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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