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Cucumber Soup

A chilled or warm soup made with cucumbers, onions, salt, and veal stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,050 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cucumber Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Pare, split, and scoop out the seeds from the cucumbers.

  2. Sprinkle salt over the cucumbers and let them drain for 1 hour.

Simmer the soup

  1. In a deep stewpan, combine the cucumbers and onions.

  2. Cover with veal stock and simmer gently until tender, about 45 minutes.

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

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

  2. Onion + vealtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Cucumber + vealtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together439 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the bulk of the soup and give it a fresh, mild flavor and soft texture when cooked.
Onions
Add savory, aromatic flavor that supports the mild cucumber base.
Veal stock
Supplies the liquid and savory body in which the vegetables simmer until tender.

The step that matters

Draining the salted cucumbers. Salt draws water out of the cucumber flesh through osmosis. Letting them drain for the full hour helps remove excess moisture, so the finished soup is not diluted and the vegetables hold their texture during simmering.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, veal):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, veal. 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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