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Cucumber Relish

A pickled cucumber relish made with cucumbers, onions, vinegar, brown sugar, celery seed, mustard seeds, flour, turmeric, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 Relish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the cucumbers and onions in salt water overnight.

Make the relish

  1. In a large pot, combine the soaked cucumbers, onions, vinegar, brown sugar, celery seed, white mustard seed, and ground mustard seed.

  2. Cook the mixture over medium heat until tender.

  3. Thicken the relish with flour, stirring well.

  4. Add the turmeric powder last and mix thoroughly.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  4. Celery + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cucumber + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the bulk of the relish and provide its crisp, fresh texture when cooked until tender.
Onions
Add savory flavor and body that softens and sweetens during cooking.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the relish its tang and helps preserve it.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the relish becomes spoonable rather than watery.

The step that matters

Thicken the relish with flour, stirring well.. Flour clumps easily if added to hot liquid without thorough stirring, leaving lumps and uneven thickness. Stirring disperses the starch so it thickens smoothly.

Swap the onion

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

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

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