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Cucumber Catsup

A pickled cucumber condiment made with cucumbers, onions, salt, pepper, mustard seed, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Cucumber Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the cucumbers and onions finely.

  2. Mix the chopped cucumbers and onions with the salt.

  3. Place the mixture in a sieve and let it drain for 8 hours.

Season and jar

  1. Add the black pepper and dark mustard seed to the drained mixture.

  2. Transfer the mixture to jars and cover 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 + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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 ketchup and its fresh, watery base that drains during salting.
Fine salt
Draws water out of the vegetables through osmosis, concentrating flavour and firming the texture.
White onions
Add savoury bulk and sharpness that mellows during the long resting period.
Dark mustard seed
Contributes pungent, sharp flavour that stands up to the vinegar.
Black pepper
Adds warm, sharp heat and aromatic bite to the preserved mixture.

The step that matters

Draining the salted mixture. Salt pulls water out of the cucumbers and onions through osmosis. Draining long enough removes that liquid so the ketchup stays thick and keeps well in vinegar rather than becoming diluted and spoiling.

Swap the onion

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

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

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