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Cucumber Stewed

A stew of cucumbers cooked in a butter and flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,991 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cucumber Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and quarter the cucumbers, removing the seeds.

  2. Lay them on a cloth to drain.

Fry

  1. Once dry, coat the cucumbers in flour and fry them in hot butter until brown.

  2. Remove the cucumbers with a slotted spoon and drain on a sieve.

Stew and finish

  1. In a stew pan, combine the cucumbers with enough gravy to cover them and stew slowly until tender.

  2. Remove the cucumbers and thicken the gravy with flour and butter. Bring to a boil.

  3. Season the gravy with pepper and salt.

  4. Return the cucumbers to the pan until warmed through.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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 dish, softening into tender pieces during slow stewing.
Flour
Coats the cucumbers for browning and later thickens the gravy.
Butter
Fries the coated cucumbers to a brown crust and enriches the gravy.

The step that matters

Frying the floured cucumbers until brown. The cucumbers must be fully dry before flouring, or the coating will not stick and will steam rather than brown. Hot butter sears the flour coat, building colour and flavour before the slow stew.

Swap the cucumber

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

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

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