Name: A Duck with Cucumbers
Ingredients: 1 duck; cucumber sauce or peas; veal stock; heads of spruce grass; benshamelle sauce

Why it works: Cucumber and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,174 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

A Duck with Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Bone the duck and braise it as described in the previous article.
Prepare cucumber sauce or peas to serve with the duck.
For the sauce, boil heads of spruce grass in a little veal stock until tender.
Rub the boiled spruce grass through a fine sieve.
Combine the pulp with a small quantity of benshamelle sauce and boil for five minutes.
Ensure the sauce is very white and strong 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.

Cucumber + saucetop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,174 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Cucumber + vealtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together439 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Cucumber + grasstop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Veal + saucetop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,072 recipes

Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).
Veal + grasstop 38% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).