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Cucumbers, Spanish Style

A cooked cucumber dish simmered in veal gravy and Espagnole sauce, finished with butter and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cucumbers, Spanish Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Peel cucumbers, slice in half, scoop out seeds.

  2. Cut cucumbers into scallops and parboil for 2 minutes.

  3. Immerse in cold water and dry on napkin.

Cook and finish the sauce

  1. Place in buttered flat saucepan and season with salt, pepper, sugar.

  2. Cover and simmer until moisture reduced.

  3. Add veal gravy and Espagnole sauce, cook until tender.

  4. Strain gravy through fine sieve into another saucepan and reduce to proper consistency.

  5. Remove from heat, add butter and chopped parsley, stir until butter melts.

  6. Pour sauce over 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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Cucumber + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 dish, becoming tender as they simmer in the sauce.
Veal gravy
Provides the savory base and body that thickens the sauce as it reduces.
Espagnole sauce
Adds depth and body to the gravy, giving it a richer, more rounded flavor.
Butter
Stirred in at the end to add richness and a glossy finish to the sauce.

The step that matters

Reducing the gravy to proper consistency. Reducing concentrates flavor and thickens the sauce by evaporating water. Under-reducing leaves it thin and watery, while over-reducing makes it too thick or salty. Straining first removes solids so the final sauce is smooth.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, sugar, veal, sauce, butter, parsley):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sugar, veal, sauce, butter, parsley. 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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