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Stewed Cucumbers

A cucumber stew made with butter, flour, stock, egg yolks, lemon juice, parsley, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stewed Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumber

  1. Peel the cucumber and cut it lengthwise into four pieces.

  2. Remove the seeds and cut the cucumber into 3-inch long pieces.

  3. Boil the cucumber pieces in water for 5 minutes, then remove them from the water and drain.

Make the sauce and finish

  1. Heat the butter in a pan and fry the cucumber pieces for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the flour to the remaining butter, then stir in the stock or cream, salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

  3. Return the cucumber to the pan and simmer until tender.

  4. Stir the minced parsley into the sauce, then mix in the raw egg yolks.

  5. Pour the sauce over the cucumber and serve.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Cucumber + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumber
Forms the main body of the dish and softens into tender pieces when simmered.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the pan and into the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter into a roux that gives the sauce body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce, giving it a smooth, creamy texture.
Stock or cream
Forms the liquid of the sauce, adding moisture and savour.

The step that matters

Mixing in the raw egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but can scramble if the sauce boils after they are added. Keep the sauce hot but not boiling so it stays smooth and creamy.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, lemon, cream, egg, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, lemon, cream, egg, butter, flour, pepper. 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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