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Cucumber Sauce
Grate two cucumbers to pulp; add one teaspoon salt, one fourth teaspoon pepper, few grains cayenne, few drops onion juice, and two tablespoons vinegar.
An uncooked relish-style sauce of the kind Edwardian kitchens sent out with cold salmon. It takes five minutes, and nearly all of the technique is in managing the water the cucumbers give up.
- Drain the pulpGrated cucumber is mostly water, and salt pulls it out fast. Toss the pulp with the salt, let it stand 15-20 minutes in a sieve, then press gently before adding the pepper, cayenne, onion juice and vinegar, or the sauce will be a puddle by the time it reaches the table.
- Which cucumbersThe recipe does not say whether to peel or seed. Thick-skinned field cucumbers with developed seeds are probably what was meant, and those are worth peeling and seeding; one English cucumber, unpeeled, will stand in for the two called for here.
- Onion juiceA period ingredient made by halving an onion and pressing the cut face against a grater to catch the liquid. A few drops means just that; grate a little onion on a microplane and squeeze it in a cloth, then add sparingly.
- The vinegarThe recipe does not say which vinegar; plain white or cider vinegar suits it. Add it last and taste, since two tablespoons in so thin a sauce can turn harsh.
- Salt levelA full teaspoon is calibrated for two cucumbers and for salt being used to draw water out. If you drain the pulp and discard the liquid, much of that salt goes with it, so season again at the end.
- Yield and servingRoughly three-quarters of a cup once drained, enough for about four. Serve it cold, alongside poached or cold salmon or other boiled fish. Fold in a few tablespoons of whipped cream or thick sour cream for the softer version that appears in other books of the period.
- KeepingMake it the day it is served. Grated raw cucumber goes flabby and weeps within a few hours.
Lowney's Cook Book was published in 1907 by Maria Willett Howard for the Walter M. Lowney Company, the Boston chocolate manufacturer, and like other maker-sponsored cookbooks of the era it surrounded its chocolate confections with a general household repertoire, which is why a cucumber sauce for fish appears among the sauces at all. Cold cucumber sauce was a common nineteenth-century accompaniment to salmon in Britain and New England, appearing in versions ranging from this bare vinegar-and-cayenne pulp to richer ones bound with whipped cream or mayonnaise. Onion juice, called for here in drops, turns up repeatedly in period recipes: it gave the flavor of onion without visible pieces in a smooth sauce.