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Cucumber Relish

A pickled cucumber and onion relish with mustard, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Relish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and chop the onions and cucumbers.

  2. Soak them in salt for 30 minutes.

  3. Drain the liquid.

Make the relish

  1. Tie the spices in cheesecloth.

  2. Boil the spices with vinegar and brown sugar.

  3. Add the cucumbers and onions.

  4. Boil everything together for 10 minutes.

  5. Make a paste with flour and mustard.

  6. Stir the paste into the relish.

  7. Add the butter.

  8. Boil all together for 5 minutes.

  9. Stir well.

  10. Bottle the relish.

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 crisp, fresh-tasting vegetable base of the relish.
Onions
Add sharp, savoury flavour and bulk to the relish.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the relish becomes thick rather than watery.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that complements the vinegar and sugar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the relish its tang and helps preserve it.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Stir the paste into the relish. Flour mixed with mustard must be smoothly blended before it goes in, or it will form lumps. Stirring it in well while the relish is boiling lets the flour starch thicken the liquid evenly.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, mustard, flour, vinegar, butter, sugar. 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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