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Stuffing for Cucumber Mangoes

A paste made from ginger, horse-radish, mustard seed, onion, mace, nutmeg, turmeric, black pepper, mustard, olive oil, and garlic, used as stuffing for cucumber mangoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Stuffing for Cucumber Mangoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ginger

  1. Wash the ginger thoroughly and pour boiling water over it.

  2. Let it stand for 24 hours.

  3. Slice the ginger thinly and dry it.

Make the stuffing

  1. Combine the ginger, horse-radish, mustard seed, onion, mace, nutmeg, turmeric, and black pepper in a bowl.

  2. Make a paste with the mixture using the mustard and olive oil.

  3. Stuff each mango with a clove of garlic.

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. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Radish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent bite that gives the stuffing its characteristic heat.
Olive oil
Binds the spices into a paste and carries their flavour, adding fat and moisture.
Onion
Adds bulk and a savoury sweetness to the stuffing mixture.
Turmeric
Contributes earthy flavour and a deep yellow colour to the paste.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that infuses the mango as it sits.

The step that matters

Make a paste with the mixture using the mustard and olive oil. The paste needs to be smooth and evenly coated with oil so the spices blend and season the mango consistently. Uneven mixing leaves pockets of raw, harsh spice.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ginger, horse, radish, mustard, onion, nutmeg, turmeric):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, horse, radish, mustard, onion, nutmeg, turmeric. 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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