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Puree of Cucumbers
Chop fine two large slices of lean ham; put it into a stewpan with a large slice of butter, few peppercorns, little nutmeg; add to this four cucumbers, trimmed and cut up; place the stewpan on the fire, letting it cook slowly for twenty minutes; then add one teacup of white sauce; reduce the purée quickly over a brisk fire, and when about the consistency of paste, add to it half a pint of cream, and one small teaspoonful of sugar; reduce the purée five or six minutes longer over the fire; then pass through a sieve, and put into a pan for use.
A cucumber purée in the older French sense: a thick, sieved vegetable base meant to be used as a sauce or a soup foundation rather than served as a bowl of vegetables. The whole thing hinges on driving off the cucumber's water before the cream goes in.
- Reduce before the creamCucumbers are more than 95 percent water, and if the pan is still loose when the cream arrives you will boil the dairy for a long time trying to catch up, which turns it grainy. Take the mixture to the "consistency of paste" the recipe describes first, then add cream and give it only the five or six minutes stated.
- Prepare the cucumbers"Trimmed and cut up" most likely means peeled and probably seeded, though the recipe does not say. Four cucumbers might come to something like 2 lb trimmed; salting the slices for 20 minutes and pressing out the liquid shortens the reduction considerably.
- White sauceIn this period usually a plain bechamel, butter and flour cooked together and moistened with milk (some books mean a stock-based sauce). A teacup is not a fixed measure; reckon it somewhere between 1/2 and 3/4 cup. It is present as a thickener and body, so keep it fairly stiff rather than pourable.
- MeasuresHalf a pint of cream is 1 cup (US); if you are following a British edition of the period it is 10 fl oz. "Two large slices of lean ham" is indefinite — figure 3 to 4 oz, chopped fine, and treat it as seasoning, not as meat in the dish.
- PeppercornsWhole peppercorns are used because everything is sieved at the end. If you intend to blend rather than sieve, crack them coarsely or use ground pepper, and add salt, which the original leaves to the ham.
- Heat control"Brisk fire" means high heat, but a ham-and-butter base scorches easily once it thickens. Use a heavy pan and stir across the bottom continuously through the reduction.
- Passing through a sieveA blender followed by a fine-mesh strainer does the work of a period sieve faster and loses less. Press the solids hard — the ham holds a good deal of flavour.
- Yield and useSomething in the region of 2 cups of thick purée. Thinned with stock or milk it would make soup for a few servings; as written it is a sauce, suited to poached chicken, veal, salmon or eggs. Treat it as a short-keeping preparation, and expect the cucumber to weep if frozen.
Cooked cucumber is unfamiliar now but was routine in nineteenth-century kitchens, where the vegetable was stewed, stuffed, glazed and pressed into purées. The method here is straightforwardly that of the professional French kitchen as it filtered into English and American household books: an aromatic base of ham and butter, a bound sauce for body, cream and a pinch of sugar to correct the cucumber's slight bitterness, then everything forced through a sieve so the result is smooth and anonymous. The closing instruction to "put into a pan for use" suggests the cook will draw on it later in the day for a soup or a sauce rather than serve it immediately.