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Cucumbers, with Onions

A pickled cucumber and onion relish simmered with stock, gravy, lemon, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Cucumbers, with Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the cucumbers and cut them into quarters. Remove the seeds and cut each quarter into three pieces.

  2. Peel the same number of small onions as cucumber pieces.

  3. Marinate the cucumbers and onions in a mixture of vinegar, water, salt, and pepper for 2 hours.

Cook and serve

  1. Transfer the cucumbers and onions to a saucepan and add enough stock to barely cover them. Boil until reduced to a glaze.

  2. Stir in a little rich brown gravy and boil for a few minutes.

  3. Add the juice of a lemon and sugar, then 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Cucumber + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the main body and crisp texture of the relish.
Small onions
Add sweetness and savour that softens and mellows during cooking.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that flavours the marinade and sharpens the finished relish.
Rich brown gravy
Adds savoury depth and colour to the reduced glaze.
Lemon juice
Brightens the flavour with fresh acidity at the end.
Sugar
Balances the acidity with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Boil until reduced to a glaze. Reducing the stock concentrates its flavour and thickens it into a glaze. If it is boiled too long the liquid can evaporate and scorch, while too little reduction leaves the relish watery.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, pepper, lemon, sugar. 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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