Skip to main content
Main

Cucumber Catsup

A cucumber catsup made by finely chopping cucumbers and onions, seasoning with salt, mustard seed, celery seed, pepper, and cold vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cucumber Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the cucumbers finely and sprinkle with salt. Let them drain overnight.

  2. In the morning, chop the onions finely.

Make the catsup

  1. Mix the cucumbers, onions, mustard seed, celery seed, and ground pepper together. Cover the mixture with cold vinegar.

  2. Transfer to a jar and cover carefully, but do not 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.

  1. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 catsup and release moisture when salted, giving a crisp, fresh texture.
Onions
Add sharp, savory flavour and aromatic body to the mixture.
White mustard seed
Contributes pungent, sharp flavour that develops as the seeds soften in the vinegar.
Celery seed
Adds a warm, earthy aroma that complements the cucumber and onion.
Cold vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the mixture and sharpens its flavour.

The step that matters

Draining the salted cucumbers overnight. Salt draws water out of cucumber by osmosis. Draining well removes that liquid, so the catsup stays thick and crisp rather than watery once it is covered with vinegar.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, mustard, celery, 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.

You might also like

Cream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipesCelery CroquettesCelery Croquettes16 recipesCelery Cream SoupCelery Cream Soup15 recipes