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Onions and Cucumbers
Peel the desired number of cucumbers, and cut them in quarters. Take out all the seeds, cut each quarter into three pieces, and pare them round. Peel as many small onions as you have pieces of cucumber; put them all to soak for two hours in vinegar and water (equal quantities), and some pepper and salt; then pour off the liquor, add as much stock as will barely cover them, boil down to a glaze, add the juice of a lemon, and a little sugar. This may be served as a dish by itself or as an accompaniment to cutlets.
A glazed vegetable garnish in the French manner, brief on quantities as Victorian dictionary entries usually are. The technique is the point: a sharp soak, then a reduction until the liquid coats rather than surrounds.
- The hinge"Boil down to a glaze" means reducing until the stock is syrupy and clings to the vegetables, with almost nothing loose in the pan. Stop while the cucumber still has some bite; once the glaze is thick it will catch and burn in under a minute, so keep the pan moving at the end.
- Quantities to work fromFor four as a side, allow two medium cucumbers, which gives 24 pieces, and the same number of small onions, since the recipe matches one onion to each piece of cucumber. Soaking liquid: 1 cup vinegar to 1 cup water with a teaspoon of salt and a good grind of pepper.
- Paring round"Pare them round" means trimming the cucumber pieces into smooth ovals, the same knife work as turned carrots. It is cosmetic and helps them cook evenly; skip it if the plate does not need it, but do peel and deseed, since the skin toughens and the seeds go watery.
- VinegarNineteenth-century household vinegar in Britain was commonly malt, though wine vinegars were also used; strengths varied and were not standardised, but a modern distilled or cider vinegar at about 5 per cent is a reasonable stand-in. Avoid balsamic or anything sweetened; the sugar comes in later, at the end.
- The onionsSmall onions here means pickling or pearl onions, roughly an inch across. Peeled fresh they are tedious work; frozen pearl onions are a fair substitute, though they release more water and need a slightly longer reduction.
- StockThe recipe specifies only "stock"; a veal or light chicken stock suits the dish. Use one unsalted or lightly salted, because the soak already seasons the vegetables and reducing to a glaze concentrates whatever salt is present. Well-reduced homemade stock with some body gives the glossiest result.
- TimingSmall onions may want 15-20 minutes of gentle simmering to become tender, the cucumber rather less. The recipe puts them into the stock together; if the onions are on the larger side you may prefer to give them a head start and add the cucumber partway so it does not collapse first.
- FinishingLemon juice and sugar go in at the end, after the reduction. The recipe calls for the juice of a whole lemon and "a little sugar"; taste as you go, since the vinegar left in the vegetables is already sharp.
Cucumber treated as a hot vegetable rather than a salad was routine in British and French cookery well into the twentieth century, and this entry is a plain example of the glazed garnish that a professional kitchen turned out regularly. The pairing with cutlets is the tell: lamb or veal cutlets served with a sharp, faintly sweet vegetable garnish was a familiar plate, and the acid-and-sugar finish does the same job as a sauce without a sauce needing to be made. Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery, compiled in the late Victorian period, is full of these short reference entries that assume the reader already knows what a glaze looks like and needs only the order of operations. The vinegar soak is a holdover from an older habit of drawing water out of cucumbers before cooking.