Skip to main content
Main

Baked Potatoes and Cucumbers

A baked dish of mashed potatoes topped with stewed cucumbers and white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Potatoes and Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Stew and mash the potatoes as usual.

  2. Butter a baking dish and place the mashed potatoes in it.

  3. Peel the cucumbers, cut them in half lengthwise, and scoop out the seeds.

  4. Stew the cucumber halves with ½ teaspoon of salt and the chopped onion until tender.

Assemble and bake

  1. Carefully remove the cucumbers from the water and press them into the mashed potatoes, hollow side up.

  2. Pour white sauce over the cucumbers and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Onion + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

  3. Potato + cucumbertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

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

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce 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

Potatoes
Form the mashed base that holds the cucumbers and gives the dish its body.
Cucumbers
Add moisture and a tender, mild vegetable texture once stewed.
White sauce
Coats the cucumbers and adds creaminess and richness as it bakes.
Butter
Greases the baking dish and adds richness to the dish.

The step that matters

Stewing the cucumber halves until tender. Cucumbers are mostly water and must be cooked through before baking, otherwise they stay firm and release liquid into the dish. Lifting them out gently keeps the hollow halves intact.

Swap the cucumber

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, butter, sauce. 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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes