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Cucumbers to Stew
699. Pare, and then slice some cucumbers not too thin, put them into a stewpan with some onions and a little salt. Let them stew in their own liquor a little while, then drain all that away, and put to them one anchovy, a little spice, some good gravy, and a little red wine or ketchup. When the anchovy is dissolved, thicken with flour and butter.
Another.-Peel and cut cucumbers in quarters, take out the seeds, and lay them on a cloth to drain off the water. When they are dry, flour and fry them in fresh butter, let the butter be quite hot before putting in the cucumbers: fry them brown, then with an egg-slice lay them on a sieve to drain the fat from them. If the taste is approved of, fry a few small or sliced onions to put with them. When drained, put them into a stewpan with as much gravy as will cover them. Stew slowly till they are tender. Take out the cucumbers with a slice, thicken the gravy with flour or butter; give it a boil up, season with pepper and salt, and put in the cucumbers; as soon as warm they are ready to serve. The above, rubbed through a sieve, may be called "cucumber sauce," and is a favourite sauce with lamb or muttoncutlets, stewed rump-steaks, &c.; for the latter a third part of onions may be added to the cucumbers.
SORREL. TO STEW, FOR FRICANDEAU AND ROAST MEAT. 700. Wash the sorrel and put it into a silver vessel, or stone jar, with no more water than hangs to the leaves; simmer it as slowly as possible, and when done enough add a bit of butter and beat it well.
Two Victorian treatments of cucumber as a hot vegetable rather than a salad: one stewed down in its own liquor, one floured and fried before braising. Both depend on driving the water out first.
- Draw the water outThis is the hinge of both methods. Cucumber is roughly 95 per cent water. In the first version the slices are stewed with a little salt and the liquor then poured away; in the second they are quartered and dried thoroughly on a cloth, since wet cucumber will not brown in hot butter.
- Which cucumbersThe paring and seeding suggest large, mature cucumbers with tough skin and developed seeds. Modern long English cucumbers work if you still scrape out the seed core; small Persian or Lebanese cucumbers can be used whole and need less draining.
- Gravy"Good gravy" here means a reduced brown meat stock, not thickened pan gravy. Use a strong beef or veal stock; the recipe simply calls for as much as will cover the cucumbers, so judge by the pan.
- The anchovyOne salted anchovy -- the whole small fish, i.e. two fillets -- mashed, dissolves into the sauce and reads as savoury depth rather than fish. Anchovy paste or a teaspoon of good fish sauce does the same work.
- KetchupIn this period ketchup means mushroom or walnut ketchup, a thin dark savoury condiment, not the tomato sauce. Worcestershire sauce or mushroom ketchup is the closer substitute; a tablespoon is enough.
- Flour and butterEqual weights of soft butter and flour worked to a paste, whisked into the simmering liquid in small pieces. Around 15 g of each will lightly bind 300 ml of gravy; boil a minute to lose the raw flour taste.
- Frying temperatureThe instruction that the butter be quite hot before the cucumbers go in matters, but plain butter browns hard at frying heat. Clarified butter, or butter with a little neutral oil, gets you the colour without burnt milk solids.
- Yield and servingAbout 1 kg of cucumbers serves four as a hot vegetable. Sieved, the second version becomes the cucumber sauce described, and suits lamb or mutton cutlets and the stewed rump-steaks the book names -- for which it also directs a third part of onions.