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Chow Chow

A pickled vegetable relish made with cabbage, cauliflower, onions, green tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, green peppers, vinegar, mustard, turmeric, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and cucumber 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the cabbage, cauliflower, onions, green tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, and green peppers finely.

  2. Boil the chopped vegetables in just enough water to cover until moderately soft, then strain.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. Combine the vinegar, mustard, turmeric, white sugar, and salt in a separate pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Pour the boiling mixture over the strained vegetables.

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. Cauliflower + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Celery + peppertop 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

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the relish and holds a firm, crisp texture after pickling.
Green tomatoes
Add tartness and body, and their pectin helps the relish thicken.
Onions
Contribute savory flavor and aroma that deepen during cooking.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the relish its sharp taste.
Mustard
Adds pungent flavor and aroma that define the relish's character.
White sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard with sweetness.

The step that matters

Boiling the vegetables until only moderately soft. Overcooking turns the vegetables mushy, while undercooking leaves them raw and crunchy. Since they then soak in hot pickling liquid, the texture set at this stage largely carries through to the finished relish.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, cauliflower, tomato, cucumber, celery, pepper, 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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