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Cutlets with Cucumber and Bacon

A dish of boiled cutlets served with cucumber, bacon, lemon peel, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 481 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cutlets with Cucumber and Bacon

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets and cucumber

  1. Boil the cutlets in a bain-marie for 10 to 15 minutes.

  2. Peel the cucumber, cut it lengthwise into four, and remove the seeds.

  3. Slice the cucumber into 1.5-inch pieces.

  4. Boil the cucumber pieces in salted water until tender.

Prepare the bacon and lemon

  1. Roll the bacon slices and skewer them.

  2. Cook the bacon in the oven or over a fire for 3 to 4 minutes.

  3. Peel the lemon thinly and cut the peel into fine shreds for garnish.

Assemble and serve

  1. Arrange the cooked cutlets in a circle on a hot potato border.

  2. Strain the gravy from the cutlets into the sauce, then pour the gravy over the cutlets.

  3. Place the cucumber in the center and add a roll of bacon between each cutlet.

  4. Garnish with shredded lemon peel and serve immediately while everything is hot.

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 + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

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

  2. Cucumber + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Lemon + potatotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cutlets
Form the main body of the dish and carry the gravy and flavour.
Thin slices of bacon
Add savoury fat and browning when cooked, giving crisp edges and rich flavour.
Medium-sized cucumber
Adds a cool, crisp, watery texture that contrasts with the rich cutlets and bacon.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aroma from its peel, brightening the rich dish.

The step that matters

Cook the bacon in the oven or over a fire for 3 to 4 minutes. Bacon rolls are thin and cook quickly; too little heat leaves the fat unrendered and pale, while too long dries and hardens them. Watch closely so the bacon is browned but still tender.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, potato):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, potato. 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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