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To Stew Cucumbers

A dish of cucumbers stewed in butter, wine, gravy, mace, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Stew Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Peel and slice the cucumbers thickly.

  2. Fry the cucumbers in butter and drain them.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, combine red wine, strong gravy, and mace.

  2. Thicken the mixture with flour and butter, then bring to a boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the cucumbers and boil for 5 minutes, shaking gently to avoid breaking them.

  2. Pour into a dish and serve.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cucumber + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + red winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,599 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Cucumber + red winetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together82 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Red wine + macetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together381 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Make up the main body of the dish, becoming tender as they are fried and simmered.
Butter
Adds richness and helps brown the cucumbers during frying.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Strong gravy
Provides savoury body and meaty flavour to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the cucumbers.

The step that matters

Adding the cucumbers and boiling. Boiling for 5 minutes with gentle shaking is needed to cook the cucumbers through and absorb the sauce. Stirring vigorously or boiling too hard can break the soft cucumber slices apart.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, butter, red wine, flour):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, butter, red wine, flour. 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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