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Stuffed Cucumbers

Stuffed cucumbers filled with chicken or lamb, rice, herbs, and a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Stuffed Cucumbers

Why it works: Cucumber and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 734 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Stuffed Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Peel and slice the cucumbers lengthwise, then scoop out the seeds.

  2. Stuff the cucumbers with a mixture of chopped chicken or lamb, cold boiled rice, and herbs, moistened with white stock.

  3. Bring the cucumber halves together and place them in an earthenware pot or enamelled stewpan.

Stew and make the sauce

  1. Add 1 cup of milk or white stock and stew gently until tender.

  2. Remove the cucumbers and thicken the sauce with a little flour and butter, the egg yolk, and lemon juice.

  3. Strain the sauce, then add capers and chopped parsley.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the cucumbers 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together734 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Thick cucumbers
Form the edible shell that holds the filling and becomes tender when stewed.
Chopped chicken or lamb
Supplies the savoury meat filling that gives the stuffing body and flavour.
Cold boiled rice
Bulks out the stuffing and soaks up stock to keep the filling moist.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it coats the cucumbers rather than running thin.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Juice of 1 lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances its creaminess.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens when gently heated, but if the sauce gets too hot it can curdle or scramble. Adding lemon juice afterward and keeping the heat low helps it stay smooth.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, rice, milk, flour, butter, egg, lemon):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, rice, milk, flour, butter, egg, lemon. 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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