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Cucumber Catchup

A pickled cucumber condiment with onions, mustard seed, pepper, and cider 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 Catchup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the cucumbers and onions finely.

  2. Sprinkle the salt over the chopped vegetables and let them drain in a sieve for 12 hours.

Combine and pickle

  1. Mix the mustard seed and ground black pepper together.

  2. Place the mixture in a stone jar and cover it with strong cider vinegar.

  3. Seal the jar tightly and let it sit for 3 days before using.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 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
Provide the bulk of the pickle, with a crisp texture when salted and drained well.
Onions
Add sharp, savoury flavour and body to the chopped vegetable mixture.
Fine table salt
Draws water out of the chopped vegetables, helping them drain and firm up.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent, earthy flavour that mellows during the resting period.
Ground black pepper
Adds warm, sharp heat that infuses into the vinegar over time.
Strong cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its tang.

The step that matters

Draining the salted vegetables for 12 hours. Salt pulls water out of the cucumbers and onions through osmosis. Draining long enough removes excess liquid, so the pickle stays crisp and does not dilute the vinegar.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

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