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Dessert

Cucumber a l’Espagnole

Cucumber à l’Espagnole is cucumber pieces simmered in brown stock and brown sauce, optionally with sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and sherry work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 143 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Cucumber a l’Espagnole

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumber

  1. Peel the cucumber and cut it into pieces 2 inches long and 1 inch wide.

  2. Remove the seeds and sprinkle the pieces with salt.

  3. Place the cucumber between two plates for 1 hour to drain.

Cook and serve

  1. Cover the cucumber with good brown stock and cook gently until done.

  2. Transfer to a dish and pour brown sauce over it; add sherry if desired.

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 + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  2. Cucumber + saucetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sauce + sherrytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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, becoming tender as it cooks gently in stock.
Salt
Draws out moisture from the cucumber pieces, so they drain before cooking.
Brown stock
Cooks the cucumber gently and adds savoury flavour from the liquid it is simmered in.
Brown sauce
Coats the cooked cucumber, adding richness and a savoury finish at serving.

The step that matters

Draining the cucumber with salt. Salting and resting the pieces pulls out excess water. If they are not drained well, the cucumber stays watery and dilutes the stock and sauce.

Swap the cucumber

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, sherry. 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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