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Cucumber Catsup

A sweet and spicy cucumber condiment made with grated cucumber, onions, pepper, salt, sugar, 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 ↓

Cucumber Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and grate the cucumbers.

Make and bottle the catsup

  1. In a large bowl, combine grated cucumber, chopped onions, black pepper, salt, cayenne pepper, and white sugar. Mix well and bottle the mixture.

  2. Cork and seal the bottles tightly.

  3. Cover the bottles with vinegar.

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

Cucumber
Forms the bulk of the catsup and supplies its fresh, watery body.
Onions
Add pungent aroma and savoury flavour that balances the sweetness.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the mixture by drawing out moisture.
Salt
Draws water out of the cucumber and onion and seasons the mixture.

The step that matters

Mixing the cucumber with salt and sugar. Salt and sugar draw water out of the grated cucumber through osmosis. Too little seasoning leaves the catsup watery and prone to spoiling, so the mixture should be seasoned and mixed thoroughly before bottling.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, pepper, sugar, 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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