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Cucumber Baskets
Select long cucumbers of uniform thickness (three cucumbers will make six baskets), cut a slice from both the stem and blossom ends, pare and cut in halves crosswise; cut from each piece a section so as to form a handle crosswise of cucumber. Scoop out the soft pulp and seeds, brush each basket over lightly with olive oil and sprinkle with finely chopped garden cress or parsley. Fill the baskets with Mayonnaise Dressing or Sauce Tartare (see recipe Page 84). Chill and serve in nests of peppergrass or lettuce heart leaves.
A carved cucumber case for cold sauce, meant as a garnish for a cold buffet rather than a dish eaten on its own. The work is entirely in the knife and in keeping the cucumber crisp.
- Cut the handle firstWith each half standing on end, mark the handle as a strip about half an inch wide running across the top, then cut down either side of it and lift out the two shoulder wedges. Hollowing before you carve leaves nothing to brace the blade against and the handle snaps.
- Cucumbers have changedField cucumbers of the period were generally thicker-skinned and seedier than what is sold now, which may be why the recipe says to pare and scoop. A long English or Persian cucumber gives straighter, more uniform baskets; leave the skin on for colour if it is thin and unwaxed.
- Draw off the waterSalt the hollowed shells lightly, stand them upside down for 20 minutes, then rinse and dry. Cucumber sheds a good deal of liquid, and unsalted shells can thin the sauce as they stand.
- Garden cress and peppergrass'Peppergrass' was an American name applied to several Lepidium species; garden cress is Lepidium sativum, the peppery sprouting cress sold today simply as cress. Watercress or micro radish greens stand in for the nest; parsley alone is the plainer option the recipe allows.
- The dressing on page 84A period mayonnaise or sauce tartare is built on raw egg yolks. If you make it from scratch and it will sit out on a table, use pasteurized eggs, and keep the filled baskets refrigerated until service.
- Fill lateChill the empty shells, fill within half an hour of serving. Filled and held, the sauce weeps and the cut edges of the cucumber go translucent.
- YieldThree cucumbers give six baskets, enough for six as a garnish beside cold chicken, salmon or tongue. Reckon two to three tablespoons of sauce each.
52 Sunday Dinners belongs to the era when a cookbook was judged partly on how a table looked, and the vegetable case — a scooped tomato, a hollowed cucumber, a pastry timbale — was one common way of getting a cold sauce onto a plate without a sauceboat. Cucumber and mayonnaise were an established pairing in English and American cookery through the nineteenth century, usually as a dressed salad; the basket simply turns the salad into architecture. Peppergrass, an older American name for garden cress, was a common kitchen-garden sowing because it germinates in days and can be cut repeatedly. The conceit is late-Victorian in spirit.