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Cucumber a la Laeken
Take a cucumber and cut it in pieces two inches long, then peel away the dark green skin for one inch, leaving the other inch as it was. Set up each piece on end, scoop it out till nearly the bottom and fill up with bits of cold salmon or lobster in mayonnaise sauce. Cold turbot or any other delicate fish will do equally well or a small turret of whipped cream, slightly salted, should be piled on top. This dish never fails to please.
A cold hors d'oeuvre built on the cucumber itself as the container. Everything depends on the cup standing up and staying dry.
- Choosing the cucumberA straight, fat English or field cucumber gives the widest bore; the slim Persian and Lebanese types are too narrow to hold much filling. Cut the two-inch lengths from the middle of the fruit and discard the tapered ends, which will not sit flat.
- The half-peeled bandThe instruction to peel one inch and leave one inch appears to be decorative rather than practical; the recipe does not say which end keeps its dark skin, though a retained ring at the base would read as a plinth. Use a swivel peeler and take the skin off in even strips so the line where you stop is level.
- Hollowing outA melon baller or a narrow apple corer works better than a knife. Leave a floor about a quarter-inch thick so the cup does not leak, and stop well short of cutting through.
- Salt and drain firstThe original omits this and the dish suffers for it. Salt the hollowed cups lightly, stand them upside down on a rack for 15 to 20 minutes, then blot the insides dry, or the water they give up will thin the mayonnaise.
- Turbot and its substitutesTurbot is still sold but is expensive and scarce outside Europe. Cold poached halibut, hake or cod loin behaves the same way; use cooked, chilled fish in firm flakes, never anything raw or lightly cured.
- MayonnaiseThe recipe assumes a stiff hand-made mayonnaise. If you use commercial mayonnaise, fold it in sparingly and add lemon juice and a little cayenne, since modern jarred mayonnaise tends to be sweeter than the period original.
- The whipped cream optionWhip to firm peaks with a pinch of salt and pipe it just before serving. Unsweetened whipped cream on cucumber slumps and weeps quickly at room temperature, so keep the filled cups refrigerated and dress them at the last moment.
- Yield and serviceOne large cucumber gives roughly four to six cups once the tapered ends are discarded; count three or four per person as a first course. Serve on a cold plate, on a bed of cress or shredded lettuce, which also keeps the cups from sliding.
Laeken is the parish on the northern edge of Brussels that holds the royal palace and its famous glasshouses, so a dish named à la Laeken carries the flavour of the Belgian court table rather than the farmhouse. The recipe comes from The Belgian Cook Book, compiled in 1915 by Mrs. Brian Luck from recipes gathered from Belgian refugees who had fled to Britain after the German invasion; its contents swing between wartime economy and remembered elegance. This is firmly in the second camp, and it belongs to a broader late-Victorian and Edwardian fashion for cold hors d'oeuvre served in edible vessels: hollowed cucumber, tomato and artichoke bottoms filled with fish or shellfish bound in mayonnaise.