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Cucumber Soup

A chilled or warm soup made from cucumbers, onions, water, milk, butter, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cucumber Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Simmer the cucumbers and onions in 1 pint of water until very soft.

  2. Press the mixture through a sieve.

  3. Add 1 pint of scalded milk to the cucumber mixture.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a separate pan, melt 1 tablespoon of butter and stir in 2 tablespoons of flour to make a thickening.

  2. Combine the thickening with the soup and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Simmer slowly for 10 minutes.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 flavour of the soup once softened and pressed.
Onions
Add savoury depth and body to the cucumber base as they soften.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, giving the soup a smooth, rich texture.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour when melted for the thickening.
Flour
Thickens the soup by swelling with the butter and liquid into a smooth roux.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour and butter thickening. Flour must be cooked in the melted butter and combined smoothly before adding to the soup; otherwise it can clump and leave a raw, pasty taste and lumps in the finished soup.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, milk, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, milk, 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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