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Soup

Cucumber Puree

A cucumber puree soup with ham, onion, celery, stock, butter, egg, cream, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cucumber Puree

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Finely slice the onion and peel and cut the cucumber into small pieces.

Make the soup

  1. Cook the onion and cucumber gently in the butter over medium heat for about 10 minutes.

  2. Add the stock, ham, and celery cut into small pieces, cover, and simmer gently for 20 minutes.

  3. Rub the mixture through a sieve and season well.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the egg and cream together.

  2. Bring the soup to a boil and gradually whisk in the beaten egg mixture.

  3. Serve immediately with fried bread.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Celery + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,745 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

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

  5. Onion + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumber
Forms the bulk of the puree and gives it its fresh, mild flavour.
Butter
Softens the onion and cucumber gently and carries flavour as they cook.
Egg
Thickens the soup as it sets gently when whisked into the hot liquid.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel to the finished soup.
White stock
Provides the liquid base that the vegetables simmer in.

The step that matters

Adding the egg and cream mixture. If the soup is boiling hard when the beaten egg is whisked in, the egg proteins set in lumps and curdle. Whisking gradually into hot but not boiling soup keeps it smooth and lightly thickened.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, onion, celery, pepper, butter, egg, cream):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, onion, celery, pepper, butter, egg, 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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