Skip to main content
Salad

Cucumber Catsup

A pickled cucumber condiment made with onions, green peppers, salt, and cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Cucumber Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Peel and remove seeds from cucumbers.

  2. Cut cucumbers lengthwise and grate or slice thin.

  3. Place cucumber pulp in a jelly bag and drain overnight.

  4. Squeeze out excess liquid in the morning.

Make the ketchup

  1. Chop onions and green peppers.

  2. Add onions, green peppers, and salt to cucumber pulp.

  3. Thin mixture with cider vinegar. Mix well.

Store

  1. Transfer to airtight jars for storage.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

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

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

Cucumbers
Make up the bulk of the ketchup and provide its watery, fresh body.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps keep it stable in storage.
Onions
Add savory flavor and aroma to the ketchup base.
Green peppers
Add fresh, slightly bitter vegetable flavor and body.

The step that matters

Squeeze out excess liquid in the morning. Cucumbers are mostly water. Removing excess liquid before adding vinegar keeps the ketchup thick rather than runny and concentrates the flavor.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes