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Cucumbee Ketchup

A preserved cucumber and onion condiment seasoned with pepper and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,050 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cucumbee Ketchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Finely chop the cucumbers and onions.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and let drain overnight.

Make the ketchup

  1. Mix in the black pepper, red pepper, and chopped red peppers.

  2. Boil the vinegar and let it cool.

  3. Pour the cooled vinegar over the mixture.

  4. Transfer to glass jars and seal 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. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the bulk of the ketchup and its fresh, crisp texture once chopped and drained.
White onions
Add savoury depth and aroma to the chopped vegetable base.
Red peppers
Contribute colour, mild sweetness and a fresh vegetal flavour to the mixture.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the ketchup its tang.

The step that matters

Draining the salted vegetables overnight. Salt draws water out of cucumbers and onions through osmosis. Draining well removes excess liquid, so the ketchup stays thick rather than watery and keeps better in storage.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, pepper, 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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