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Cucumbers a LA Poulette

A French cucumber salad with butter, veal stock, eggs, and parsley.

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

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

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

  4. Flour the cucumbers well.

Cook and finish

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

  2. Add the cucumbers and gently shake for 10 minutes, avoiding any color change.

  3. Gradually pour in enough 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 a large teaspoon of finely minced parsley.

  6. Thicken the sauce with the yolks of two or three eggs.

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
Provide the main vegetable body and crisp-tender texture once cooked.
Flour
Coats the cucumbers so the sauce thickens and clings to them.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the gentle cooking of the cucumbers without browning them.
Veal stock or gravy
Forms the savory liquid that becomes the sauce around the cucumbers.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce on gentle heat and add richness and smoothness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the cucumbers and balances the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with the yolks. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat; if the sauce boils after they are added, they can scramble and curdle, leaving the sauce grainy instead of smooth.

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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