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Soup

Cream of Cucumbers

A chilled cucumber soup made with pureed cucumbers, onion, butter, flour, milk, pepper, salt, and rich cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 cucumber

  1. Peel and slice the cucumbers and onion.

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

  3. Press the mixture through a fine sieve into a clean saucepan and keep hot without cooking.

Make the sauce

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

  2. Gradually add the milk, white pepper, and salt.

  3. Boil for a few minutes until thick.

  4. Pour the thickened mixture into the cucumber puree.

  5. Add the rich cream and bring to a boil.

Serve

  1. 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, giving its fresh, mild flavor and smooth purée texture.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the milk into a smooth, creamy base.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that becomes thick and creamy when combined with the roux.
Rich cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the finished soup a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Adding the thickened mixture to the cucumber purée. The sauce and purée must be kept hot without boiling the cucumbers, since overheating can dull flavor and cause the mixture to separate or curdle.

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.

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