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Cucumbers

Fried cucumber slices served with a sauce of wine, catsup, mace, cloves, nutmeg, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Pare and slice the cucumbers into ¼-inch thick rounds, then lay them in a coarse cloth to drain.

  2. Once dry, flour and fry the cucumber slices in fresh butter until brown.

  3. Remove the fried cucumbers with a slotted spoon and keep them warm.

Stuff and fry the whole cucumber

  1. Cut a piece out of one large cucumber, scoop out the pulp, and fill it with fried onions seasoned with pepper and salt.

  2. Replace the cut piece, tie it, and flour it before frying until brown.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In the same pan, add a little flour and stir, then add 2-3 tablespoons of water, wine, and catsup.

  2. Add mace, cloves, grated nutmeg, and finely ground pepper and salt, stirring well.

  3. Add the fried cucumbers to the sauce and stew for 2-3 minutes.

  4. Place the whole cucumber in the center of a dish, untie it, and arrange the fried slices around it, pouring the sauce over the top.

  5. Garnish with fried onions and serve 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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  4. Red wine + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Cucumber + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,319 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Frying the rounds gives a browned exterior while the flesh stays moist and tender inside.
Fresh butter
Fat for frying that carries heat and browns the flour coating.
Flour
Coats the cucumber and thickens the sauce so it clings to the fried pieces.
Onions
Fried filling that adds savory flavour inside the stuffed cucumber.
White or red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Catsup
Adds sweetness and tang to the sauce.

The step that matters

Drain the cucumber slices before frying. Cucumber is mostly water. If the slices are still wet, the oil or butter cools and the flour coating steams instead of browning, so the pieces turn soggy rather than crisp.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, butter, flour, onion, pepper, red wine, clove):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, butter, flour, onion, pepper, red wine, clove. 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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