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Sliced Cucumber Catsup

A pickled cucumber and onion condiment seasoned with spices, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Sliced Cucumber Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice cucumbers and onions, then cover with coarse sea salt and let stand overnight.

  2. Wash in cold water and drain through a colander.

Cook

  1. Mix with celery seed, mustard seed, allspice, cloves, mace, cinnamon bark, black pepper, red peppers, alum, turmeric, and sugar.

  2. Put all ingredients into a porcelain kettle, cover with vinegar, and scald 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 catsup and supply its fresh, watery body.
Onions
Add savory flavor and body to the sliced vegetable mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the vinegar and spices.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the catsup and sharpens its flavor.
Mustard seed
Contributes a pungent, sharp bite to the spiced sauce.
Red peppers
Add heat and pepper flavor to the catsup.

The step that matters

Scald thoroughly in the vinegar. The mixture must be heated enough to soften the vegetables and blend the spices, and it needs enough acid to keep the catsup safe for storage. Under-heating leaves the vegetables raw and may leave the preserve less stable.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, onion, celery, mustard, allspice, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, onion, celery, mustard, allspice, clove, cinnamon. 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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