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Salad

Green Cucumber Catsup

A fermented cucumber condiment with horseradish, onion, green pepper, and cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 640 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Green Cucumber Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Peel the cucumbers deeply and grate them, or chop them in a bowl until finely chopped.

  2. Place the chopped cucumbers in a bag and squeeze slightly to remove excess liquid.

  3. Measure the cucumbers; for every pint, add ¼ cup of grated horseradish.

Season and mix

  1. If desired, add chopped onion and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Mix in a few chopped green peppers if you like.

  3. Add 1 quart of cider vinegar, mix well, and seal the mixture.

Rest

  1. Let it sit for a week or two before using.

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 + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Horseradish + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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, providing its fresh, watery base texture.
Horseradish
Adds sharp pungency that gives the ketchup its characteristic bite.
Cider vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the mixture and sharpens its flavor.

The step that matters

Squeezing out the excess liquid. Cucumbers hold a lot of water. Removing the excess before mixing keeps the ketchup thick rather than thin and diluted, and helps the flavors concentrate.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, horseradish, pepper, cider, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, horseradish, pepper, cider, 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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