Name: Cucumber Catsup
Ingredients: large cucumbers; celery seed; black mustard seed; white mustard seed; sugar; pepper; coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); strong vinegar

Why it works: Celery and mustard 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

Grate the large cucumbers and squeeze them through a cloth to extract all the juice.
Add the dry pulp to celery seed, black and white mustard seed, sugar, pepper, and salt to taste.
Cover the mixture well with strong vinegar.
Store in glass jars.

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.

Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,281 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cucumber + celerytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,745 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

Swap the celery

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

Tarragonfits better
Dillfits better
Capersfits better
Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, mustard, sugar, pepper, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.