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Cucumbers, Duchesse

A lightly fried cucumber dish served with a Parmesan sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cucumbers, Duchesse

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Peel and quarter the cucumbers, then scoop out the seeds.

  2. Parboil the cucumbers in lightly salted water with a little vinegar for 2 minutes.

  3. Immerse them in cold water and dry on a towel.

Fry and serve

  1. In a flat saucepan, heat a little clarified butter.

  2. Season the cucumbers with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and sugar.

  3. Fry the cucumbers lightly on both sides without browning the butter.

  4. Remove them carefully with a slotted spoon and place on a serving dish.

  5. Prepare a reduced sauce and stir in the grated Parmesan cheese.

  6. Pour the sauce over the cucumbers and serve.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cucumber + nutmegtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together432 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

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 dish, becoming tender when parboiled and lightly fried.
Clarified butter
Fat for frying that adds richness and gentle browning without the milk solids burning.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and body to the reduced sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the cucumbers lightly without browning the butter. Clarified butter burns at a lower temperature than water-based butter fat is removed from, but it still darkens and turns bitter if overheated. Keeping the heat moderate lets the cucumbers soften and brown lightly while the fat stays clean-tasting.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, vinegar, butter, pepper, sugar, parmesan cheese):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, butter, pepper, sugar, parmesan cheese. 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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