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To Few Cucumbers

Cucumbers simmered in a sauce of red wine, gravy, mace, flour, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Few Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Peel the cucumbers and slice them thick.

  2. Fry the slices in fresh butter and drain on a sieve.

Make the sauce

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

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

  3. Add the cucumbers and simmer for 5 minutes without breaking them.

Serve

  1. 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
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender when simmered in the sauce.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Strong gravy
Supplies savoury body and richness to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the cucumber slices.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and helps thicken the sauce with flour.

The step that matters

Add the cucumbers and simmer for 5 minutes without breaking them. Cucumber is mostly water and turns soft quickly. Gentle simmering keeps the slices intact while they absorb flavour, whereas vigorous boiling or stirring breaks them down and clouds the sauce.

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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