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Cucumber Sandwich No. 2
Sprinkle thin slices of lightly buttered white bread with cayenne. Place thinly sliced cucumbers that have been mixed with a little French dressing between the slices.
A two-line tea sandwich that depends almost entirely on technique, since there are only four ingredients. The main risk is a soggy sandwich.
- Drain the cucumber firstThe recipe assumes you know to do this. Slice paper-thin, salt lightly, rest 20-30 minutes in a colander, then press dry between towels before dressing. Otherwise the dressing and cucumber liquor go straight into the bread.
- French dressing, 1909 senseFrench dressing, period sense -- Not the sweet orange bottled dressing. It means a plain vinaigrette of oil and vinegar with salt and pepper, whisked and used at once; proportions in period recipes vary, commonly around three or four parts oil to one of vinegar. Use it sparingly here — a teaspoon or two for a whole cucumber.
- Cayenne is a seasoning, not a garnishA very light dusting over the butter, barely visible. It is there to cut the cucumber's blandness.
- The butter is structuralIt must be soft enough to spread thin and edge-to-edge, which is what seals the crumb against moisture. Cold butter tears the bread and leaves bare patches that go wet.
- BreadA close-grained white sandwich loaf, sliced thin. Day-old bread cuts cleaner than fresh.
- Assemble lateThese do not hold. Make them within an hour of serving and keep them under a barely damp cloth in the refrigerator; beyond that the bread greys and slumps.
- YieldOne medium cucumber dresses about six to eight rounds or a dozen fingers, depending on how you cut them.
Cucumber sandwiches belong to the English afternoon-tea table of the late nineteenth century, and cucumbers grown reliably under frames or glass carried some cachet as a luxury. American sandwich books of the 1900s absorbed the form wholesale, and this collection numbers its variations on a single idea rather than giving one canonical version — this being No. 2. The addition of French dressing is not part of the plainest English form, which was usually cucumber, butter and salt.