Name: Cucumber Catsup
Ingredients: 12 cucumbers; 3 onions; 1 quart vinegar; 1 pound white sugar; 1 tablespoon celery seed; 1 teaspoon allspice; 1 teaspoon black pepper; 1 teaspoon red pepper; 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt

Why it works: Celery and pepper 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

Grate the cucumbers and onions.
Combine grated vegetables with vinegar and sugar.

Season and bottle

Season with celery seed, allspice, black pepper, red pepper, and salt.
Bottle the mixture when cold and seal.

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.

Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Celery + allspicetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,422 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,518 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Cucumber + allspicetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together501 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 bulk and moisture that becomes the body of the sauce.
Onions: Add a sharp, savory aroma and flavor to the sauce.
Vinegar: Adds acidity for a sharp flavor and helps keep the sauce stable.
White sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.

Swap the onion

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

Mustardfits better
Capsicumfits better
Radishfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, sugar, celery, allspice, 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.