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Cucumber Sauce
4 large cucumbers 1 teaspoonful white pepper I grated onion 1 teaspoonful salt 3 tablespoonfuls tarragon vinegar 1½ gills (3/4 cup) whipping cream Peel and grate the cucumbers, which should be large and crisp; when the pulp is thoroughly drained, turn it into an earthenware bowl; add the pepper, the onion, grated, the salt, and vinegar.
Mix and fold in the whipped cream at serving time. 2 eggs
An uncooked cold sauce, closer to a loose cucumber cream than a poured sauce, meant for cold salmon, boiled fish or cold meats. Everything depends on getting the water out of the cucumbers.
- Drain hard, then drain againGrated cucumber holds an enormous amount of water, and any that survives will thin the cream into soup. Salt the grated pulp lightly, let it sit 20-30 minutes, then press it in a sieve or wring it in a clean towel before proceeding.
- GillsThe printed page gives 1½ gills, which matches the parenthetical ¾ cup: a gill is a quarter pint, or half a cup, in American measure. Measure the cream before whipping.
- Cucumbers then and nowLarge cucumbers of the period were often thick-skinned and seedy. Modern English or seedless cucumbers give more usable flesh, so fewer may be needed; with seedy field cucumbers, halve and scrape the seeds out before grating.
- Tarragon vinegarStill sold, and worth seeking out, since it carries the whole flavour of the sauce. Failing that, steep a sprig of fresh tarragon in white wine vinegar for a few hours rather than substituting plain vinegar.
- Grated onionGrate on the fine side of a box grater and use the juice as well as the pulp. One onion is a lot for this quantity if it is a large modern cooking onion; start with a tablespoon of pulp and taste.
- White pepperKeeps the sauce free of dark specks. Black pepper will do if appearance does not matter, though the flavour is not quite the same.
- Fold at the last minuteThe instruction to add the whipped cream at serving time is the hinge. Acid and cucumber liquid will loosen whipped cream on standing, so combine the base ahead, chill it, and fold the cream in as the dish goes out.
- YieldRoughly two to three cups, depending on how hard the cucumber is pressed; enough for six to eight servings alongside cold fish.
Cucumber and cream, sharpened with vinegar, was a common accompaniment to cold salmon in Anglo-American cookery of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and versions of it appear in household manuals of the period. The tarragon vinegar suggests the French-influenced end of that tradition; plainer versions used cider or white vinegar, or lemon. The earthenware bowl, rather than metal, is specified as in old pickling recipes: acid attacks tinned and copper vessels and can impart a metallic taste.