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Cucumber Catsup

A cucumber and onion condiment preserved with salt, pepper, vinegar, and celery seed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pulp

  1. Grate the cucumbers and onions to a pulp.

  2. Drain the mixture through a sieve for several hours.

Season and bottle

  1. Add coarse sea salt, black pepper, and good vinegar.

  2. Seal the mixture in bottles.

Second method

  1. For the second method, boil and grate full-grown cucumbers.

  2. Sprinkle with salt and let stand overnight.

  3. Pour out all the water, season with celery seed, and add vinegar until the mixture is about the consistency of grated cucumber.

  4. Bottle for use.

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. 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
Provide the main bulk and fresh vegetable flavor of the ketchup.
White onions
Add sharp aromatic flavor that balances the sweetness of the cucumbers.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the ketchup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the grated vegetables, concentrating texture and flavor.

The step that matters

Draining the pulp. Cucumbers hold a lot of water. Draining long enough removes it, so the ketchup thickens instead of becoming watery and diluting its seasoning.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

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