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Cucumber Mango

A cucumber stuffed with seasoned meat, soaked in vinegar and spices, then stewed in gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cucumber Mango

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cucumber in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds.

  2. Soak the cucumber halves in boiled vinegar with mustard seeds, garlic, and spices for 24 hours.

Stuff and cook

  1. Fill the cucumber with highly-seasoned force-meat.

  2. Tie the cucumber halves together and stew in rich gravy until cooked.

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 + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  2. Cucumber + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,556 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Mustard + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumber
Forms the outer shell that holds the stuffing and softens as it stews.
Vinegar
Acidic soak that flavours the cucumber and helps it keep its shape.
Highly-seasoned force-meat
Provides the savoury filling that becomes the main body of the dish.
Rich gravy
Moist cooking liquid that flavours the dish and keeps the stuffed cucumber from drying out.

The step that matters

Tie the cucumber halves together and stew in rich gravy until cooked. The halves must be held tightly closed so the force-meat stays inside while stewing. Gentle, sustained simmering in liquid cooks the meat through and softens the cucumber without it falling apart.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, vinegar, mustard, garlic, meat):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, mustard, garlic, meat. 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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