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Stewed Cucumbers

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and bread work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 344 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Stewed Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut cucumbers into quarters, peel, and remove the seeds.

  2. Boil the cucumbers until tender.

  3. Serve with toasted bread and sweet cream.

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. Cucumber + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together344 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Bread + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,789 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + creamtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together787 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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