Cucumbers, Dressed
INGREDIENTS.-Cucumber, 3 tablespoonfuls of salad-oil, 4 tablespoonfuls of vinegar, salt and pepper to taste. AVERAGE COST, frame cucumbers, 4d. to 1s.; field ones, 1d. to 3d. each.
CUCUMBERS.
Pare the cucumber, cut it equally into very thin slices, and commence cutting from the thick end; if commenced at the stalk, the cucumber will most likely have an exceedingly bitter taste, far from agreeable. CUCUMBER SLICED.
For the purpose of slicing cucumbers evenly and very thin, we recommend the slice in preference to an ordinary knife.
Put the slices into a dish, sprinkle over a very little salt and some pepper, and pour over oil and vinegar in the above proportion; turn the cucumber about, and it is ready to serve. This is a favourite accompaniment to boiled salmon, is a nice addition to all descriptions of salads, and makes a pretty garnish to lobster salad.
SEASONABLE. - Forced from the beginning of March to the end of June; in full season in July, August and September.
A Victorian dressed cucumber is nearer to a quick pickle than a modern salad — the dressing carries more vinegar than oil. A few notes before you make it.
- The dressing ratioThree tablespoons oil to four of vinegar is the reverse of the modern three-to-one vinaigrette, and it will taste sharp to most palates. The recipe names salmon, salads and lobster salad as its uses, and the sharpness suits rich fish; if you are serving the cucumber alone, flip the proportions or use a mild wine vinegar. The recipe does not say which vinegar is meant.
- Which end to cut fromThe advice to slice from the thick end down toward the stalk is sound. Cucurbitacins, the bitter compounds, tend to concentrate at the stem end and in the peel. Modern varieties are bred low in these compounds, so the effect is much smaller than in 1861.
- "The slice"A cucumber slicer: a flat wooden or metal plane with a fixed blade, of the same family as the mandoline. Any mandoline or the slicing disc of a food processor gives the same near-translucent sheets. A very sharp knife will do, but evenness is the point.
- Frame and field cucumbersFrame cucumbers were raised under glass in heated frames, long and thin-skinned like a supermarket cucumber; field ones were outdoor-grown, shorter, thicker-skinned and seedier, and cost a fraction as much. Either works here; a ridge or outdoor cucumber should have its seeds scraped out.
- Salt and timeThe recipe salts and dresses in one motion, which means the cucumber begins weeping the moment it is dressed and the dressing thins as it stands. If you want it crisp, dress it immediately before serving. If you would rather have it limp and well-seasoned, salt the slices, leave them twenty minutes, drain the liquid off and then dress.
- YieldOne large cucumber dressed this way will serve about four as an accompaniment; the recipe gives no yield. The oil and vinegar quantities are generous for a single cucumber, so expect a pool in the dish.
- SeasonableThe March-to-June forcing season and the July-to-September glut are a real constraint of the period, not a preference. Year-round glasshouse cucumbers make the note historical rather than practical.
Cucumber dressed with oil, vinegar and pepper is a long-established English salad preparation, and the recipe itself calls it "a favourite accompaniment to boiled salmon" — the acid cutting the oily fish. The cost note is a small piece of social history in itself: a forced frame cucumber at up to a shilling was a luxury item from a heated glasshouse or frame, while a field cucumber at a penny was within reach of far more households in high summer, and the gap between the two prices suggests the range of kitchens the book was written for. The warning about bitterness reflects the varieties then grown, which carried far more cucurbitacin than anything sold today; the folk practice of cutting off the stem end and rubbing the cut faces together to "draw out the bitter" belongs to the same tradition, though it is a household habit rather than anything Beeton endorses.