Why it works: Cucumber and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,174 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Cucumbers À l'Espagnole
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Peel the cucumber and cut it into pieces 2 inches long and 1 inch wide.
Remove the seeds and sprinkle the pieces with salt.
Place the cucumber between two plates for 1 hour to drain.
Serve
Serve with stock and sauce.
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.
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Cucumber + saucetop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,174 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cucumber
- Forms the main body of the salad, and its crisp texture is the dish's base.
The step that matters
Draining the cucumber. Salt draws water out of the cucumber pieces by osmosis. Draining for the full hour removes excess liquid so the salad stays crisp rather than watery.
“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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