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Cucumber Catchup

A pickled cucumber relish made with vinegar, salt, pepper, onion, and olive oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Cucumber Catchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel, grate, and squeeze the cucumbers through a cloth until all the water is removed.

Season and jar

  1. Add cider vinegar, coarse sea salt, black pepper, and onion to taste.

  2. Put the mixture in glass jars.

  3. Pour 1 tablespoon of olive oil into each jar and seal them well.

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 + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Onion + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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; squeezing removes water so the texture stays firm.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the relish its sharp, tangy flavour.
Olive oil
Adds fat and a silky mouthfeel to each jar.

The step that matters

Squeezing the cucumbers. Cucumbers hold a lot of water. If it is not all removed through the cloth, the relish becomes watery and dilutes the vinegar and seasoning, and it may spoil sooner in the jar.

Swap the onion

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

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

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