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Sauce

Cucumber Sauce for Fish

A chilled cucumber sauce with tarragon, pepper, sea salt, vinegar, whipped cream, and onion juice for fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 274 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cucumber Sauce for Fish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Peel the cucumbers and grate them using a sieve.

  2. Drain the pulp thoroughly and place it in a bowl.

  3. Add the salt, pepper, onion juice, and vinegar to the bowl. Mix well and stir in the whipped cream just before serving.

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 + tarragontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together274 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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 sauce and a fresh, watery texture once drained.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness.
Tarragon
Contributes a distinct anise-like aroma that flavours the sauce.

The step that matters

Drain the pulp thoroughly. Cucumber is mostly water. Leftover liquid would thin the sauce and dilute the vinegar and seasoning, so the pulp should be well drained before mixing.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, tarragon, pepper, vinegar, cream. 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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