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To Stew Cucumbers and Celery

A stew of sliced cucumbers and onion, thickened with butter and flour, seasoned with cayenne, black pepper, mace, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Stew Cucumbers and Celery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Peel the cucumbers.

  2. Slice the cucumbers thinly, or cut small ones lengthwise.

  3. Slice the onion in proportion to one for every two cucumbers.

Make the cucumber stew

  1. Stew the cucumbers and onion together in broth or melted butter, adding cayenne, black pepper, and salt.

  2. Thicken the sauce with butter kneaded into flour.

  3. Skim the sauce and pour it over the cucumbers.

Add the celery and finish the sauce

  1. Clean the celery and cut it into three-inch lengths.

  2. Stew the celery in a little butter until tender.

  3. Thicken the sauce with butter rolled in flour.

  4. Add sweet cream to the sauce.

  5. Season the sauce with pepper, mace, and salt.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 stew and soften into a tender, moist vegetable base.
Flour
Thickens the butter and broth into a smooth sauce that coats the vegetables.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and helping the flour thicken the sauce.
Sweet cream
Enriches the sauce, adding body, mild sweetness and a smooth texture.
Onion
Adds savory depth and aroma as it softens into the stew.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with butter kneaded into flour. Flour must be fully cooked into the fat and liquid, or the sauce tastes raw and floury. Blending it smoothly into the butter first prevents lumps from forming when it meets the hot liquid.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, onion, butter, pepper, flour, cream):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, onion, butter, pepper, flour, cream. 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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