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Cucumbers a LA Creme

A chilled cucumber dish served in a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Cucumbers a LA Creme

Why it works: Cream and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Cucumbers a LA Creme

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and quarter or dice the cucumbers, then remove the seeds.

  2. Soak the cucumbers in water for 30 minutes until crisp.

Cook and finish

  1. In a saucepan, cover the cucumbers with boiling water and add salt.

  2. Boil for about 30 minutes or until tender, then drain.

  3. Add the cucumbers to the cream sauce and cook for a moment or two.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Cucumber + saucetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Make up the bulk of the dish and give a tender, mildly crisp texture after cooking.
Cream sauce
Provides richness and a smooth body that coats the cooked cucumber pieces.

The step that matters

Drain the cucumbers after boiling. Cucumbers hold a lot of water. Draining them well before adding them to the cream sauce keeps the sauce from thinning and becoming watery.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sauce. 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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