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Sauce

Cucumber Sauce

A sauce made from sliced cucumbers simmered in butter, flour, vinegar, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,734 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Cucumber Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare and slice the cucumbers.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan and gently stew the cucumbers for about 30 minutes.

  2. Stir in the flour.

  3. Add the vinegar.

  4. Bring to a boil. The sauce is ready.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cucumber + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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
Provide the main body and fresh flavor of the sauce as they soften during stewing.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor while the cucumbers stew gently.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it becomes smooth and cohesive rather than watery.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the butter.

The step that matters

Gently stewing the cucumbers. Stewing over low heat softens the cucumbers without browning the butter or breaking them down too quickly. Keeping heat gentle helps the flour thicken evenly once it is stirred in.

Swap the cucumber

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, flour, vinegar. 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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