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Chow Chow

A pickled relish made from cucumbers, cabbage, onions, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Sprinkle cucumbers with salt and let them stand for 6 hours.

  2. Squeeze cucumbers dry.

  3. Scald cucumbers in a mixture of vinegar and water until cold.

  4. Prepare cabbage in the same way as cucumbers.

  5. Pour boiling water and vinegar over the chopped onions.

  6. Let the mixture cool and press dry the onions.

Make the pickle

  1. Add grated horseradish, minced garlic, mustard, white mustard seed, turmeric, mace, cinnamon, celery seed, cayenne pepper, and olive oil to the onions. Mix well.

  2. Boil allspice and cloves in vinegar with brown sugar.

  3. Pour the hot mixture over the pickles, ensuring they are well covered.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 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
Salting draws out water, leaving the pieces firmer and crisper after pickling.
Cabbage
Salting and pressing remove moisture, so the pickle stays crisp rather than watery.
Onions
Pressing after the vinegar rinse removes excess liquid, adding bite and body to the mix.
White mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that mellows during pickling.
Brown sugar
Sweetness balances the sharpness of the vinegar and spices.
Vinegar
Acidity preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its tang.

The step that matters

Pressing the vegetables dry. Excess water left in the cucumbers, cabbage and onions dilutes the vinegar brine and makes the pickle soft and watery. Squeezing or pressing them thoroughly keeps the texture crisp and the brine strong enough to preserve.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, cabbage, onion, vinegar, horseradish, garlic, mustard):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cabbage, onion, vinegar, horseradish, garlic, mustard. 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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