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Cucumber Soup

A chilled or warm soup made from cucumbers, onions, veal stock, thickener, and optional cream, eggs, vinegar, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 734 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Cucumber Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Split and empty the cucumbers, then sprinkle with a little coarse sea salt and let drain for 1 hour.

  2. Combine the cucumbers and the white part of the onions in a deep saucepan, covering with veal stock.

Cook and strain

  1. Stew gently for 45 to 75 minutes until tender.

  2. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve and add more stock to reach desired soup quantity.

Thicken and serve

  1. Stir in a thickener when boiling to achieve a good consistency.

  2. Add boiling cream and serve immediately.

  3. For a variation, mix egg yolks with chili vinegar and stir in minced parsley just before serving, without boiling.

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 + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together734 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the main body and fresh, mild flavour of the soup.
Veal stock
Supplies the liquid and savoury depth in which the cucumbers cook.
Thickener
Starch swells when boiling, giving the soup a smoother, more body-filled consistency.
Boiling cream
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Eggs
Egg yolks, if used, enrich and thicken the soup without boiling.

The step that matters

Stirring in the thickener while boiling. Starch must be fully boiled to swell and thicken properly; without enough heat it stays grainy or thin, and it can clump if added to liquid without stirring.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, veal, rice, cream, pepper, egg, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, veal, rice, cream, pepper, egg, vinegar. 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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