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Cucumber Soup

A chilled cucumber soup made with veal stock, thickened with arrow‑root or rice flour, and optionally finished with cream, egg yolks, chili 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 the soup

  1. Pare, split, and remove seeds from the cucumbers.

  2. Sprinkle the cucumbers with salt and let drain for 1 hour.

  3. In a saucepan, combine the cucumbers and the white part of the onions.

  4. Cover with veal stock and stew gently for 45 to 75 minutes until tender.

  5. Press the mixture through a fine sieve.

  6. Add more stock to reach the desired soup quantity.

  7. Stir in a thickener such as arrow-root or rice flour until the soup reaches a good consistency.

Finish and serve

  1. Add boiling cream and season with salt and cayenne pepper.

  2. Mix egg yolks with chili vinegar. Stir the mixture in just before serving.

  3. Add parsley without boiling.

  4. Serve immediately.

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
Make up the bulk of the soup and give it its fresh, mild flavour and body.
Onions
Add savoury aroma and sweetness as they stew with the cucumbers.
Veal stock
Provides the savoury liquid base that carries the flavour of the soup.
Thickener (arrow-root or rice flour)
Thickens the liquid to a smooth, silky consistency.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup, adding richness and smoothness.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks without boiling. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat. If the soup boils after they are added, the proteins can scramble, leaving a grainy texture instead of a smooth, creamy one.

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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