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Stuffed Cucumbers, Italian Style

A baked dish of cucumbers filled with chopped roast chicken, smoked beef tongue, mushrooms, and bread crumbs, served with Italian sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Stuffed Cucumbers, Italian Style

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Prepare the cucumbers by removing the ends and hollowing them out.

  2. In a bowl, mix the chopped chicken, beef tongue, and mushrooms.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff each cucumber with the meat mixture.

  2. Sprinkle fresh bread crumbs over each stuffed cucumber.

  3. Place the cucumbers in a buttered baking pan and drizzle with olive oil.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until nicely browned.

Serve

  1. Serve with white or brown Italian sauce.

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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Chicken + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Cucumber + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Mushroom + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,571 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Act as the hollow shells that hold the stuffing during baking.
Fresh bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns in the oven.
Olive oil
Adds fat that helps the topping brown and the cucumbers take on color.
Roast chicken
Supplies cooked meat that makes up the bulk of the stuffing.
Smoked beef tongue
Adds savory, smoky meat flavor to the stuffing.
Fresh mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy flavor to the meat filling.

The step that matters

Hollowing the cucumbers. Removing too little flesh leaves the shells thick and the filling cramped, while cutting too deep can break the walls. Even walls let the filling hold together and cook through evenly in the oven.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, beef, mushroom, bread, olive, sauce):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, beef, mushroom, bread, olive, 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.

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