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Stewed Cucumbers

A dish of cucumbers stewed in butter, flour, cream, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stewed Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Soak the cucumbers in cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. Peel and cut them into finger-length slips, removing the seeds.

  3. Boil the cucumbers for a few minutes with salt, then drain well.

Make the sauce and finish

  1. In a saucepan, melt butter and mix in flour, then add cream.

  2. Stew the cucumbers in the mixture for 10 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in beaten egg yolks and vinegar if desired.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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 main body of the dish, softening into a tender vegetable base when stewed.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavour, adding richness to the stew.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Cream
Adds body and richness, forming the liquid that the cucumbers stew in.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce gently when stirred in off the heat.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they meet very hot liquid. Removing the pan from heat before stirring them in lets them thicken the sauce smoothly.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, cream, egg, vinegar):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cream, egg, vinegar. 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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