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Cucumber Catsup

A fermented cucumber condiment with onions, horseradish, salt, sugar, vinegar, spices, and mustard seeds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cucumber Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Grate the cucumbers and sprinkle with salt.

  2. Grate the onions and horseradish, then mix with the cucumbers.

  3. Press the mixture to remove all the water and save the liquid.

Season and bottle

  1. Measure the saved water and use the same amount of vinegar.

  2. Add sugar, turmeric, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and mustard seed to the mixture.

  3. Mix thoroughly, then bottle and cork tightly.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Turmeric + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  5. Horseradish + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together437 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Make up the bulk of the catsup and supply its moisture and mild, fresh body.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma that builds as the catsup stands.
Horseradish
Adds sharp, pungent heat and aroma that fades with time.
Sugar
Provides sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and horseradish.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the catsup its tang and helps keep it stable in the bottle.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the grated cucumbers so the mixture can be pressed dry.

The step that matters

Press the mixture to remove all the water. Salt draws water out of the cucumbers, and pressing removes it. Leftover liquid dilutes the flavor and thins the catsup, so the texture and taste depend on getting the vegetables as dry as possible.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, horseradish, sugar, vinegar, turmeric, pepper, mustard):

  1. Radishfits better
  2. Cauliflowerfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, horseradish, sugar, vinegar, turmeric, pepper, mustard. 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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