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Puree of Cucumbers
Peel four medium, sound ripe cucumbers, cut in quarters, remove spongy parts, place in a saucepan with a pint broth and half teaspoon salt. Cover pan and boil thirty minutes. Thoroughly drain, then rub through a wire sieve into a bowl.
Mix in a saucepan a tablespoon melted butter with a tablespoon and a half flour, beat for a half minute, add a gill cream, sharply stir until it comes to a boil, then add puree with three saltspoons salt, a saltspoon cayenne, half ounce butter, and sharply stir while heating five minutes. Remove, dress the puree on a vegetable dish, neatly smooth both sides to a dome shape, arrange six heart-shaped croutons around and serve.
A cooked cucumber puree, thickened with a small roux and served as a hot vegetable rather than a soup. The archaic measures are the main obstacle; the technique is straightforward.
- The hinge: drain hardCucumber is almost entirely water, and thirty minutes of boiling releases all of it. If the quarters are not pressed dry after draining, the finished puree slumps on the dish and will not hold the dome shape the recipe asks for. Let them sit in the sieve, then press with the back of a ladle before rubbing through.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. Three saltspoons of salt is about three-quarters of a teaspoon, and one saltspoon of cayenne is a quarter teaspoon, which is assertive for four cucumbers. Add half and taste.
- GillHalf a cup, or 4 fl oz. Heavy cream is the right choice here; anything lighter may break when the puree is held over heat for five minutes.
- Half ounce butterOne tablespoon, added at the end as a finishing enrichment rather than as part of the roux. Stir it in off direct heat if the puree is already at a simmer.
- Spongy partsThis means the seed core. Modern cucumbers vary: seedless English types need almost nothing removed, while field cucumbers should be scraped out with a spoon so the puree is not watery.
- Boiling timeThirty minutes is long by current standards, but the goal is total collapse for sieving rather than a cooked vegetable with texture. Fifteen to twenty minutes will usually do it if the pieces are small; test that they crush with no resistance.
- SievingA food mill or a food processor followed by a fine sieve gives the same result as rubbing through a wire sieve, with less work. Do not skip the sieve entirely, as stray seeds and fibre will show.
- CroutonsThe recipe specifies only their shape and number; they were usually cut from white bread with a cutter and fried in butter until golden. They are structural as much as decorative, giving a dry, crisp contrast to a very soft dish.
- YieldFour cucumbers reduce dramatically. Expect enough for four modest side servings.
Cooked cucumber was ordinary in nineteenth-century European and American kitchens, where the vegetable was as often stewed, stuffed or pureed as it was eaten raw. Alexander Filippini, long associated with Delmonico's in New York, compiled The International Cook Book (1906) as a very large survey of dishes arranged for professional and ambitious domestic cooks, and this entry shows the house style clearly: a classical white sauce base, precise saltspoon seasoning, and a plated presentation smoothed to a dome and ringed with heart-shaped croutons. That garnish is a restaurant convention of the period, used across pureed vegetables and salpicons alike, and it suggests, though one can only infer as much, that the dish was meant to be looked at as much as eaten.