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Boiled Cucumber

Boiled cucumber slices served on buttered toast with cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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 ↓

Boiled Cucumber

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pare the cucumbers and cut them lengthwise into slices about the size of asparagus.

  2. Boil the cucumber slices for about 20 minutes.

  3. Drain the slices and lay them on buttered toast.

  4. Cover the cucumbers with cream sauce.

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. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cucumber + saucetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Cucumber + buttertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,185 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Make up the main body of the dish, contributing moisture and a mild, fresh flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the toast beneath the cucumbers.
Cream sauce
Coats the cucumbers, adding creaminess and richness to the dish.

The step that matters

Drain the slices well. Cucumber holds a lot of water. If the slices are not drained well, the moisture will soak into the buttered toast and thin the cream sauce.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Onionfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, sauce. 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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