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Cucumber Sauce, White
INGREDIENTS.-3 cucumbers, 1/2 pint of white stock, cayenne and salt to taste, the yolks of 2 eggs. AVERAGE COST, 1s. 2d.
Cut the cucumbers into small pieces, after peeling them and taking out the seeds. Put them in the stewpan with the white stock and seasoning; simmer gently TELEGRAPH CUCUMBERS. till the cucumbers are tender, which will be in about 1/4 hour. Then add the yolks of the eggs well beaten; stir them to the sauce, but do not allow it to boil, and serve very hot.
TIME.-Altogether hour.
Cucumber Soup. (French Recipe.) INGREDIENTS for soup for 5 persons.-1 large cucumber, a piece of butter the size of a walnut, a little chervil and sorrel cut in large pieces, salt and pepper to taste, the yolks of 2 eggs, 1 gill of cream, 1 quart of medium stock. AVERAGE COST, 1s. 6d.
Pare the cucumber, quarter it, and take out the seeds; cut it in thin slices, put these on a plate with a little salt, to draw the water from them; drain, and put them in a stewpan, with the butter. When they are warmed through, without being browned, pour the stock on them. Add the sorrel, chervil and seasoning, and boil for 40 minutes. Mix the yolks of the eggs, well-beaten, with the cream, which add at the moment of serving.
TIME.-1 hour.
SEASONABLE from June to September.
Cucumber Vinegar. (A very nice addition to Salads.) - INGREDIENTS.-10 large cucumbers, or 12 smaller ones, 1 quart of vinegar, 2 onions, 2 shalots, 1 tablespoonful of salt, 2 tablespoonfuls of pepper, teaspoonful of cayenne.
CUCUMBERS À LA POULETTE. 106 Pare and slice the cucumbers, put them in a stone jar or wide-mouthed bottle with the vinegar; slice the onions and shalots, and add them, with all the other ingredients, to the cucumbers. Let it stand 4 or 5 days, boil it all up, and when cold, strain the liquor through a piece of muslin, and store it away in small bottles well sealed. This vinegar is a very nice addition to gravies, hashes, &c., as well as a great improvement to salads, or to eat with cold meat.
Cucumbers à la Poulette.-INGREDIENTS for dish for 6 persons. cиcитbers of moderate size, salt and vinegar, 2 oz. of butter, flour, 1/24 pint of broth, 1 teaspoonful of minced parsley, a lump of sugar, the oon yolks of 2 eggs, salt and pepper to taste.
AVERAGE COST, 4d. each.
Pare and cut the cucumbers into slices of an equal thickness, and let them remain in a pickle of salt and vinegar for 1/2 hour, CUCUMBER-SLICES. then drain them in a cloth, and put them into a stewpan with the butter. Fry them over a brisk fire, but do not brown them, and then dredge over them a little flour; add the broth, skim off all the fat, which will rise to the surface, and boil gently until the gravy is somewhat reduced, but the cucumber should not be broken. Stir in the yolks of the eggs, add the parsley, sugar and a seasoning of pepper and salt; bring the whole to the point of boiling, and serve.
TIME.-Altogether, 1 hour.
SEASONABLE in July, August or September; but may be had, forced, from the beginning of March.
Four related cucumber preparations, three of them finished with egg yolk. The technique is consistent: cook the cucumber gently so it holds its shape, then thicken off the heat.
- The hinge: never boil after the yolks go inBeaten yolks stirred into hot stock will curdle at a simmer. Pull the pan off the heat, stir the yolks in (slacken them with a spoonful of the hot liquid first), and return to low heat only long enough to thicken, well below boiling. "Bring the whole to the point of boiling" in the poulette means to the edge of it, not into it.
- Telegraph cucumbersA long, thin-skinned frame variety, effectively what is sold now as an English or hothouse cucumber. Three of them make a large dish; two modern English cucumbers are ample for four.
- Salting and seedingPeel, quarter, scrape out the seeds, then salt the slices 20-30 minutes and drain. Cucumber is more than 95 per cent water, and skipping this step gives a thin, washed-out sauce.
- White stock and medium stockWhite stock is an unbrowned veal or chicken stock; medium stock is a lighter mixed-meat broth. A good unsalted chicken stock stands in for both. Season at the end, since the salting step already contributes salt.
- A gill5 fl oz, about 150 ml. The soup takes a gill of cream mixed with the yolks as the liaison, added at the moment of serving.
- Sorrel and chervilBoth are seasonal greengrocer items rather than supermarket staples. Sorrel brings the acidity that carries the soup; a squeeze of lemon at the end approximates it. Chervil is best added late, as its anise note cooks off quickly.
- Broth quantity in the pouletteThe printed measure for the broth is not a usable figure. About 1/4 pint (5 fl oz) suits the method: enough to make a short gravy around the slices, reduced before the yolks go in.
- Cucumber vinegarStandard bottled malt or white wine vinegar at around 5 per cent acidity is what is wanted. Two tablespoons of pepper is a great deal by modern taste; a teaspoon of coarsely cracked black pepper suits most palates. Strain, bottle, and keep it refrigerated once opened.
- Timings and yieldThe stewed cucumbers take about 15 minutes to tenderise. The soup's 40-minute boil predates the modern preference for brief cooking; 20 minutes leaves more cucumber flavour. Soup serves five, the poulette six as a vegetable course.
- The costingsPrices such as 1s. 2d. and 4d. are pre-decimal shillings and pence from the book's own era and carry no useful relation to present prices.
Cucumbers reached the Victorian table mainly through glass: market gardeners and country-house gardeners forced them in heated frames, which is why the book can promise them "forced, from the beginning of March" while giving the natural season as June to September. The Telegraph was one of the celebrated long frame varieties of the later nineteenth century, prized for straightness and thin skin, and its name became near-shorthand for the type. The finishing here is classic: a la poulette is traditionally said to take its name from the light stock-based sauce bound with egg yolk and sharpened with lemon or vinegar, the same liaison used for the soup and the stewed dish. Cucumber vinegar belongs to a different household tradition, the shelf of flavoured vinegars and store sauces kept to enliven cold meat and made-over dishes through the winter, when fresh cucumber was out of reach.