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Sauce Verte Glacee

A chilled cucumber and herb sauce served with grilled fish or meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Chervil and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sauce Verte Glacee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumber

  1. Peel the cucumber, cut it in half, and remove the seeds.

  2. Slice the cucumber.

  3. Cook the cucumber slices in slightly salted water until tender.

  4. Strain the cooked cucumber slices.

  5. Rub the strained cucumber through a fine sieve.

Make the sauce

  1. Chop the blanched herbs finely.

  2. Mix the chopped herbs with the cucumber puree, Orleans vinegar, and a little spinach greening.

  3. Whisk the cream slightly.

  4. Stir the whisked cream into the mixture when cool.

  5. Incorporate the mayonnaise and dissolved aspic jelly (not hot) gradually into the mixture.

  6. Stir the mixture over ice with a whisk for a few minutes.

  7. Season the mixture to taste.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into an oblong biscuit tin.

  2. Seal the tin with paper and a lid.

  3. Place the sealed tin in a charged ice-cave for 1 hour.

  4. Unmold the mixture.

  5. Cut the mixture into neat slices or cubes.

  6. Serve the slices or cubes with grilled fish or meat.

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. Chervil + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Chervil + spinachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together78 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Cucumber + cherviltop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together144 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cucumber + spinachtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together355 recipes

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

  5. Cucumber + tarragontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together274 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumber
Forms the bulk of the green purée, adding moisture and a fresh body to the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the chilled mixture.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and emulsified richness, giving the sauce body and a creamy mouthfeel.
Aspic
Gelatine-based jelly that sets the mixture so it can be unmoulded and sliced.

The step that matters

Incorporating the mayonnaise and aspic. Aspic must be dissolved but not hot, because heat can weaken its setting power and hot liquid can split or thin the emulsified mayonnaise. Adding it gradually over ice keeps the mixture cool and smooth so it sets evenly.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chervil, tarragon, spinach, vinegar, cream, sugar, pepper):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chervil, tarragon, spinach, vinegar, cream, sugar, pepper. 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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