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Cucumber Catsup

A pickled cucumber relish made with cucumbers, onions, green peppers, salt, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,050 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cucumber Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Seed and grate the cucumbers.

  2. Make a bag from thin muslin, place the cucumbers inside, and hang it up to drain overnight.

  3. Chop the onions and green peppers.

Make and bottle the relish

  1. In a bowl, combine the drained cucumbers, chopped onions, chopped green peppers, salt, and vinegar.

  2. Bottle the mixture and seal it.

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. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

  2. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the bulk of the relish and its crisp texture once drained of excess water.
Onions
Add sharp aromatic flavor that mellows during the salted, vinegared rest.
Green peppers
Contribute fresh, slightly bitter vegetable flavor and crunch.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the relish its tangy flavor and helps preserve it.

The step that matters

Draining the cucumbers overnight. Cucumbers are mostly water. Hanging the grated cucumbers in muslin removes excess liquid, so the relish stays firm rather than watery once combined with the vinegar and salt.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, 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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