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Salad

Green Catsup

A fermented green vegetable sauce made with cabbage, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, onions, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Green Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice and chop the onions, then pour hot water over them and let them stand for 10 minutes.

  2. Chop the cabbage, cucumbers, green peppers and green tomatoes.

  3. Sprinkle salt over the vegetables and let the mixture stand for 1 hour.

  4. Drain the water off.

Macerate in vinegar

  1. Pour cold vinegar over the mixture and let it stand for 24 hours.

  2. Pour off the vinegar.

Season and bottle

  1. Add ⅓ pound of brown sugar to the mixture.

  2. Season the mixture with mustard seed, ground cloves, and mace to taste.

  3. Put the spices in enough vinegar to cover the catsup.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  5. Pour the boiling mixture over the catsup.

  6. Bottle the catsup 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 + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  5. Cabbage + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together722 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Provides bulk and a firm, crisp texture in the finished catsup.
Cucumbers
Adds moisture and a fresh, crisp body to the chopped vegetable mixture.
Green tomatoes
Supplies tartness and body that thicken the catsup as it cooks.
Onions
Contribute pungency and aroma that mellow during standing and cooking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth that balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Cold vinegar
Acidifies the vegetables, drawing out moisture and preserving the catsup.

The step that matters

Standing the salted vegetables for 24 hours in vinegar. Salt and vinegar draw water out of the vegetables and firm their cell walls, so the catsup stays crisp rather than mushy. Pouring off the liquid afterward removes the excess water that would otherwise dilute and spoil the product.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, cucumber, pepper, onion, vinegar, sugar, 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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