Name: Chow Chow
Ingredients: 2 quarts cabbage, chopped fine; 1 quart beets, chopped fine; 1 quart vinegar; ½ teaspoon red pepper; ¼ teaspoon ground cloves; 1 tablespoon celery seed; 1 tablespoon cinnamon; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 cup sugar

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the vinegar in a porcelain kettle.
Add the chopped cabbage and beets.
Stir in red pepper, ground cloves, celery seed, cinnamon, salt, and sugar.
Boil for 3 minutes.
Remove from heat and place in earthen jars.
Wash and boil the beets for 20 minutes before chopping fine.

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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,840 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: Provides the bulk and a crisp, tender texture in the finished relish.
Beets: Adds colour and an earthy sweetness to the mixture.
Vinegar: Supplies acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the chow chow.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, pepper, clove, celery, cinnamon, sugar):

Mustardfits better
Capsicumfits better
Carrotfits better
Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, clove, celery, cinnamon, 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.