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Cucumbers, A La L'Espagnole
Cut the cucumbers into lengths of two inches; remove all the seeds, pare off the skins, and trim them round and smooth at the ends; parboil them in water and salt a few minutes, and then drain them upon a napkin. Fill each piece of cucumber with some quenelle force-meat of chicken; then place them in order in a deep pan, lined with thin pieces of fat bacon ; cover the cucumbers with the same ; moisten with consommé, and let them simmer over a slow fire for half an hour; when very tender drain them upon a cloth; dish in a pyramidal shape; pour some Espagnole sauce over them, and serve.
A classic braise of stuffed cucumber barrels, written for a kitchen that already had forcemeat and Espagnole sauce standing by. The two components the recipe assumes are the real work.
- Quenelle forcemeat of chickenRaw chicken breast pounded or processed smooth with egg white and cream, often with a bread or flour panade, seasoned with salt, white pepper and a little nutmeg. Roughly 8 oz chicken to 1 egg white and 1/2 cup cream; keep everything cold or the mixture breaks.
- Espagnole sauceA brown roux built out with veal or beef stock, mirepoix and tomato, simmered down and strained. It is a half-day sauce in its full form; a well-reduced brown stock sauce is the practical substitute, but the original expects the real thing.
- Hollowing the piecesUse large, mature cucumbers, not thin-skinned English ones, since you need wall thickness to hold the filling. An apple corer takes the seed core out cleanly from a 2-inch length.
- Parboil briefly"A few minutes" means two or three at most in salted water. Cucumber collapses fast and the pieces still have half an hour of braising ahead of them.
- Fat baconMost likely the fat of mildly cured, unsmoked bacon or fat salt pork, cut in thin sheets to line and cover the pan so the cucumbers braise without browning. Modern smoked streaky bacon will dominate the dish; blanched salt pork or thin sheets of fatback are closer.
- Consomm",Clear chicken or veal stock. It should barely come up the sides of the cucumbers, not cover them.
- Heat and donenessA bare simmer over low heat for about 30 minutes, as the recipe directs. The cucumber should yield to a skewer and the chicken filling should be cooked through (165F if you check with a thermometer).
- Yield and servingTwo large cucumbers give roughly 8 to 10 pieces, enough for four as a side course. The pyramid is stacked on a warm dish and sauced at the last moment, since the cucumber sheds liquid as it sits.
The name marks the sauce: served with Espagnole, one of the brown leading sauces of nineteenth-century French professional cookery. Stuffed and braised cucumber belongs to the same family of grand-service vegetable entremets as stuffed cabbage and braised lettuce, where a bland vegetable is hollowed, filled with a fine forcemeat and glazed with a strong sauce. Recipes written in this register assume a reader who already knew what a quenelle and a consomme were.