Why it works: Cucumber and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 303 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Cucumber Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Make the mayonnaise
Make a highly seasoned and very stiff mayonnaise.
Prepare the cucumbers
Pare the cucumbers based on the quantity of sauce needed.
Soak the cucumbers in salted ice water for several hours.
Slice the cucumbers into ¼ inch thick pieces and cut into small dice.
Dry the chopped cucumbers thoroughly between cloths.
Serve
Just before serving, mix the cucumbers with the mayonnaise and add capers.
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.
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Cucumber + caperstop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together303 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Mayonnaise
- Provides a rich, fatty base that carries the sauce's flavour and body.
- Cucumbers
- Supply crisp texture and fresh, mild flavour once salted and well dried.
- Capers
- Add a sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the richness of the mayonnaise.
The step that matters
Dry the chopped cucumbers thoroughly between cloths.. Cucumbers hold a lot of water. Any moisture left on the diced pieces will thin the mayonnaise and dilute its flavour, so the sauce becomes loose and watery instead of thick and clinging.
“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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