Skip to main content
Salad

Cucumber Relish

A relish made from cucumbers, peppers, onions, celery seed, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cucumber Relish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the cucumbers and onions.

  2. Soak them in salt water overnight.

Combine

  1. Drain the mixture and combine all ingredients together.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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
Form the bulk of the relish and supply its crisp, watery texture.
Green peppers
Add mild, fresh flavor and crunch.
Red peppers
Add sweetness and bright color.
Onions
Add sharp aroma and savory bite.

The step that matters

Drain the mixture thoroughly. Salt draws water out of the cucumbers and onions through osmosis. Draining well removes the released liquid and excess salt, so the relish stays crisp and is not overly wet or salty.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, onion, celery. 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.

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes