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Stewed Cucumbers

A dish of cucumbers simmered with salt, vinegar, onion, butter, and strong cullis, served with roasted mutton or fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,050 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the cucumbers and cut them into shapes if seeded or slices if young.

Stew

  1. Place them in a saucepan and add a little coarse sea salt, vinegar, and the onion.

  2. Simmer over low heat until nearly done and the liquid is reduced, or fry them in fresh butter.

  3. Add a good strong cullis and let the cucumbers cook until done.

Serve

  1. Serve them with roasted mutton or as a standalone dish with fried bread around them.

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 + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

  2. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh cucumbers
Form the main body of the dish, softening as they cook.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the cullis.
Fresh butter
Adds fat and richness when the cucumbers are fried instead of simmered.
Strong cullis
Supplies concentrated savoury flavour and body to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer until the liquid is reduced. Cucumbers hold a lot of water. Cooking them gently over low heat lets that liquid reduce so the dish concentrates in flavour instead of becoming watery and diluted.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, onion, butter. 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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