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Cucumber Catsup

A pickled cucumber relish made with vinegar, spices, and horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 376 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cucumber Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a porcelain-lined kettle, combine the cucumbers, onions, green peppers, garlic, shallots, and horseradish.

  2. Add enough cold vinegar to cover the mixture.

  3. Stir in the salt, ground cloves, allspice, mace, cinnamon, and red pepper.

Cook and bottle

  1. Boil gently until the catsup reaches the desired consistency.

  2. Cool the catsup and then bottle 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. Shallot + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together376 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

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

  4. Cucumber + shallottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together264 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Cucumber + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,556 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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 catsup and supply its fresh, watery body.
Spanish onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they soften during the long simmer.
Green peppers
Contribute vegetal flavor and body to the chopped vegetable mixture.
Cold vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the catsup and sharpens its flavor.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the vegetables and seasons the mixture.
Horseradish
Adds sharp, pungent heat that mellows during cooking.

The step that matters

Boil gently until the catsup reaches the desired consistency. Gentle boiling reduces the liquid slowly, thickening the chopped vegetables without scorching them. Too vigorous a boil can burn the sugars and solids on the kettle base, and too short a cook leaves the catsup thin and less shelf-stable.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, onion, pepper, garlic, shallot, horseradish, 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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