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To Stew Cucumbers

A simple stew of sliced cucumbers cooked with onions, salt, pepper, broth or butter, finished with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

To Stew Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the cucumbers thick or halve them lengthwise.

  2. Sprinkle the cucumbers with salt, pepper, and sliced onions.

Stew

  1. Add broth or butter to the cucumbers.

  2. Simmer the cucumbers slowly.

  3. Stir in flour. If butter was used, add only a little flour unless more richness is desired.

  4. Alternatively, flour the cucumbers and fry them in butter until golden.

  5. Add broth or gravy and stew the cucumbers until cooked through.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, add butter if not used before.

  2. Skim off any excess fat before serving.

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 + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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 bulk of the dish and soften into tender pieces as they simmer.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savory aroma as it cooks down into the stew.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and browns the cucumbers when they are fried.
Broth
Supplies moisture and savory flavor for the stewing liquid.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a lightly bodied gravy.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour. Flour thickens by its starch swelling in hot liquid. Adding too much, or adding it without enough stirring or simmering, can leave lumps or a pasty sauce. Adding only a little and stirring it in well gives a smooth, lightly thickened gravy.

Swap the cucumber

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

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

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