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Cucumber Catsup

A chilled cucumber condiment made with vinegar, mustard, celery seed, pepper, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cucumber Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Place the peeled cucumbers in cold water.

  2. Grate the cucumbers and season well with coarse sea salt.

  3. Tie the grated cucumbers in a thin cloth and let them drain overnight.

Finish and serve

  1. In a bowl, mix the vinegar, white mustard, celery seed, black pepper, and sugar.

  2. Pour the mixture over the drained cucumbers and serve cold.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cucumber + celerytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,745 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Make up the bulk of the ketchup and, once salted and drained, give a soft, spoonable texture.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the grated cucumber, concentrating the flavor and firming the texture.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the ketchup its sharp, tangy character and helps preserve it.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.
White mustard
Adds a pungent, sharp heat that rounds out the vinegar.

The step that matters

Draining the grated cucumbers overnight. Cucumber is mostly water. If it is not drained well, the excess liquid dilutes the vinegar and spice mixture and leaves the ketchup thin and watery. Salting first draws out moisture, and draining in a cloth removes it, so the final sauce keeps a thick, spoonable consistency.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, mustard, pepper, 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.

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