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Cucumber Sandwiches

A light sandwich made with cucumber slices, buttered bread, salt, pepper, and parsley garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cucumber Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cucumber into thin slices.

  2. Spread butter on each slice of bread.

Assemble

  1. Layer cucumber slices between two slices of bread.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Cut the bread into small pieces, removing the crusts.

  4. Roll each sandwich slice gently into a bolster shape.

Serve

  1. Arrange on a plate and garnish with fresh parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumber
Provides moisture and a fresh, crisp texture in the filling.
Bread
Forms the structure that holds the filling together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and creates a barrier that keeps bread from soaking up moisture.

The step that matters

Spread butter on each slice of bread. A thin, even layer of butter coats the bread and slows moisture from the cucumber from soaking through, keeping the sandwich from going soggy.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, pepper, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, pepper, parsley. 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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