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Salad

Cucumber Catsup

A preserved cucumber condiment made by salting, simmering with anchovies, wine, mace, and pepper, then bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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. Peel and slice the cucumbers and onions.

  2. Spread them on a sieve over a large bowl.

  3. Strew a handful of coarse sea salt over them and let them stand for 24 hours to draw out the juice.

  4. Collect the juice in the bowl and pour it into a stewpan.

Make the ketchup

  1. Add the anchovies, white wine, whole mace, and pepper to the stewpan.

  2. Simmer for 30 minutes, then strain the mixture.

  3. Let it cool, then bottle it tightly.

Seal for storage

  1. Seal the bottles with corks and tie them down with bladder for storage.

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + white winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,535 recipes

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

  5. White wine + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,433 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
Provide the main bulk and juice that forms the base of the ketchup.
Onions
Add savoury depth and body to the liquid as they cook down.
Anchovies
Contribute a salty, savoury umami backbone to the finished sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and a bright, sharp note to balance the vegetables.
Whole mace
Gives a warm, aromatic spice flavour during simmering.

The step that matters

Draining the vegetables with salt. Salt draws water out of the cucumbers and onions by osmosis, so the juice is concentrated before cooking. Leaving them too short a time yields a thin, weak ketchup.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, onion, white wine, pepper. 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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