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Cucumbers Stuffed with Marrow

A stuffed cucumber dish filled with bread crumbs and marrow, baked in gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cucumbers Stuffed with Marrow

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Peel and split the cucumbers lengthwise, then scoop out the seeds with a teaspoon.

  2. Mix the seeds and surrounding pulp with equal parts bread crumbs and chopped marrow, and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Stuff the cucumbers with the mixture, press the halves together, and secure with small wooden skewers.

Make the gravy

  1. To make gravy, melt butter in a saucepan, stir in flour until light brown, then gradually add boiling water.

  2. Season the gravy with salt and pepper, boil for one minute, and use.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the stuffed cucumbers in a baking dish and cover with meat gravy.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes or until tender.

  3. Remove the skewers and serve hot.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cucumber + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cucumber + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together344 recipes

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

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 shell that holds the stuffing and softens into a tender vegetable when baked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the seeds and pulp, giving the stuffing body so it holds together.
Marrow
Adds richness and a soft, fatty texture to the stuffing.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the gravy and carries the flavour of the roux.
Flour
Thickens the gravy when cooked with butter into a roux, and browns slightly for colour.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, butter, 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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