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Sauce

White Cucumber Sauce

A sauce made from boiled cucumbers mixed with béchamel, egg yolks, and veal gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,734 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

White Cucumber Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Quarter the cucumbers and remove the seeds and rinds.

  2. Cut the cucumbers into 1‑inch lengths.

  3. Boil the cucumbers in salted water for 15 to 18 minutes.

  4. Press the water from the cucumbers using the back of a spoon.

Make the sauce

  1. Work the cucumbers through a sieve and mix with béchamel sauce.

  2. Stir in beaten egg yolks and chili vinegar or lemon juice just before serving.

  3. Do not boil again; serve hot.

Variations

  1. For a better flavor, boil cucumbers in seasoned veal gravy.

  2. For another variation, slice cucumbers and stew in butter without browning.

  3. Boil in pale veal gravy thickened with rich cream and add sugar.

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 + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  2. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Provide the main body and fresh vegetable flavor of the sauce.
Béchamel sauce
Forms the thick white base that gives the sauce its body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce, adding richness and smoothness.
Butter
Adds fat and richness when the cucumbers are stewed.
Veal gravy
Adds savory depth and liquid in the variation cooking methods.

The step that matters

Do not boil again after adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat and will curdle or scramble if boiled, leaving the sauce grainy instead of smooth.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, egg, vinegar, butter, veal, sugar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, egg, vinegar, butter, veal, sugar. 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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