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To Stew Cucumbers

A stew of sliced cucumbers cooked in gravy with ham, onion, herbs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

To Stew Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare the cucumbers and cut them into thick slices.

  2. Flour the cucumber slices and fry them in butter.

Stew and serve

  1. Place the fried cucumbers in a saucepan with 1 cup of gravy.

  2. Season with cayenne, salt, mushroom ketchup, and a little port wine.

  3. Let them stew for an hour 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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  3. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Cucumbers
Form the main body of the stew and soften into tender pieces during stewing.
Flour
Coats the slices so they brown in butter and help thicken the gravy.
Butter
Fries the floured slices, adding browning and rich flavour.
Gravy
Provides the liquid that the cucumbers stew in, adding savoury body.

The step that matters

Let them stew for an hour. Cucumber is mostly water and turns soft and watery if overcooked, while too brief a stew leaves the slices firm and the gravy thin. Keeping the pan at a gentle simmer lets the flavours blend without breaking the slices apart.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, mushroom, ketchup, port wine, ham, onion):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, mushroom, ketchup, port wine, ham, onion. 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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