Name: Chow Chow. No. 2
Ingredients: 8 pounds white cabbage; 8 pounds sugar; 1 cup grated horse-radish; 4 green pepper pods, finely chopped; 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); 1 small piece of alum; vinegar; 1 pound mustard seed

Why it works: Radish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 297 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Chow Chow. No. 2

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the cabbage into pieces until it weighs eight pounds.
In a large jar, layer cabbage, sugar, green pepper, horse-radish, and salt until the jar is filled.
Add a small piece of alum and cover with vinegar.
Finally, add one pound of mustard seed.

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.

Radish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together297 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Cabbage + radishtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together106 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together529 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 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

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, horse, radish, pepper, vinegar, mustard):

Horseradishfits better
Cucumberfits about as well
Broccolifits about as well
Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, horse, radish, pepper, vinegar, mustard. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.