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Salad

Cucumbers a LA Poulette

A cucumber salad prepared with vinegar, salt, flour, butter, and veal stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,734 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Cucumbers a LA Poulette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Pare and slice cucumbers very thin, or quarter them, remove seeds, and cut into half-inch lengths.

  2. Steep 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 the cucumbers

  1. In a saucepan, melt a slice of butter over medium heat until it begins to boil.

  2. Add the cucumbers and shake gently for 10 minutes, ensuring they do not color.

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

  4. When it boils, skim off the fat.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cucumber + vealtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together439 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Butter + vealtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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
Provide the main body and crisp-tender texture of the salad.
Flour
Coats the cucumbers so they thicken the sauce and hold onto it.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for cooking the cucumbers gently.
Veal stock or gravy
Supplies the liquid and savory body of the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the cucumbers a sharp, tangy flavor.

The step that matters

Shaking the cucumbers without browning. Butter that gets too hot browns and its milk solids darken, changing the pale color and delicate flavor of the sauce. Keeping the heat moderate and the cucumbers moving gently keeps them pale.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, flour, butter, veal. 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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