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Cucumbers a LA Poulette

Cucumbers sautéed in butter and veal stock, seasoned with salt, pepper, parsley, and thickened with egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,564 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Cucumbers a LA Poulette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel, slice and quarter the cucumbers, remove the seeds, and cut them into half-inch lengths.

  2. Soak the cucumbers in vinegar, sprinkle with coarse sea salt, and let stand for 30 minutes.

  3. Drain the cucumbers and press them dry with a soft cloth.

  4. Dredge the cucumbers in flour.

Cook and finish

  1. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat until it begins to boil.

  2. Add the cucumbers, gently shake for 10 minutes, avoiding browning.

  3. Gradually pour in veal stock or gravy to nearly cover the cucumbers.

  4. Once boiling, skim off any fat, then add salt and white pepper to taste.

  5. When the cucumbers are tender, stir in minced parsley and thicken the sauce with egg yolks.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cucumber + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cucumber + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender as they simmer in the sauce.
Flour
Coats the cucumbers so the stock thickens into a smooth, lightly bound sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour as the cucumbers are gently cooked.
Veal stock or gravy
Provides the savoury liquid that cooks the cucumbers and forms the sauce.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and add richness when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Thickening with egg yolks. Egg yolks set when heated, so if the sauce boils after they are added it can curdle and turn grainy. Stir them in off the heat or over very low heat, and keep the sauce just below a simmer.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, vinegar, flour, butter, veal, parsley, egg):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, flour, butter, veal, parsley, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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