Skip to main content
Main

Cucumbers Stewed in Butter

A stew of sliced cucumbers cooked in butter, veal gravy, cream, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cucumbers Stewed in Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the cucumbers

  1. Slice the cucumbers.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan and add the sliced cucumbers.

  3. Cook the cucumbers gently for 15 to 18 minutes without browning.

Finish the sauce

  1. Add the pale veal gravy and bring to a simmer.

  2. Thicken the sauce with rich cream and stir in the sugar before serving.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cucumber + vealtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together439 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Butter + vealtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Make up the bulk of the dish and release moisture that becomes part of the sauce as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor, and helps the cucumbers cook gently in the pan.
Pale veal gravy
Provides a savory, meaty base that gives the sauce body and depth.
Rich cream
Thickens the sauce and makes it smooth and rich in texture.
Sugar
Adds a light sweetness that balances the savory gravy and cream.

The step that matters

Cook the cucumbers gently without browning. Gentle heat softens the cucumbers and keeps the sauce pale and delicately flavored. Higher heat browns the butter and sugars, changing the color and taste, and cream added to a boiling sauce can split.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, veal, cream, 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.

You might also like

Veal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes