Skip to main content
Soup

Cream of Cucumbers

A cucumber soup made with cucumber puree, onion, butter, flour, milk, pepper, salt, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cream of Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Peel and slice the cucumbers and onion.

  2. Place them in a saucepan and cover with boiling water.

  3. Cook until tender, then press through a fine sieve into another saucepan.

Make the cream sauce

  1. In a separate saucepan, melt the butter and flour together until they no longer stick to the pan.

  2. Gradually add the milk, white pepper, and salt, and boil until thick.

Combine and serve

  1. Pour the cream sauce into the cucumber puree and add the rich cream.

  2. Heat until just boiling and serve immediately.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cucumber + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,067 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 soup, supplying the fresh, mild flavor and smooth puree.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the milk into a smooth, body-rich cream sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it creaminess and richness.
Rich cream
Adds fat and a silkier, richer mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Adding the milk to the roux. Adding liquid gradually while stirring keeps the flour dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps. Boiling until thick fully cooks the flour, removing its raw taste.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, onion, butter, flour, milk, cream):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, onion, butter, flour, milk, cream. 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.

You might also like

Indian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd SoupClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd Soup65 recipesMock Bisque SoupMock Bisque Soup51 recipesCream of Asparagus SoupCream of Asparagus Soup42 recipes