Skip to main content
Main

Cucumbers a LA Poulette

A cucumber salad cooked with butter, veal stock, egg yolks, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 the cucumbers

  1. Peel and slice cucumbers very thin, or quarter and remove seeds, cutting into half-inch lengths.

  2. Soak cucumbers in vinegar and sprinkle with coarse sea salt for 30 minutes.

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

  4. Flour the cucumbers well.

Cook and finish the sauce

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

  2. Add cucumbers and gently shake for 10 minutes without browning them.

  3. Gradually pour in enough strong pale veal stock to nearly cover the cucumbers.

  4. Once boiling, skim off any fat.

  5. Add salt and white pepper to taste.

  6. When cucumbers are tender, stir in minced parsley.

  7. 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. White pepper + parsleytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 salad, becoming tender while cooking in the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour while the cucumbers cook gently.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set gently with heat, giving it body and richness.
Strong pale veal stock or gravy
Provides the savoury liquid base that forms the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the cucumbers and sharpens the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with egg yolks. Egg yolks set when heated, but if the sauce boils after they are added they can scramble and turn grainy. Keep the heat low and stir steadily.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, vinegar, 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, 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.

You might also like

Veal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes