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Cucumbers a LA Poulette

A French cucumber dish simmered in veal stock, butter, and egg yolks, seasoned with vinegar, salt, pepper, 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 the cucumbers

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

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

  3. Press the cucumbers dry with a soft cloth and coat them with flour.

Cook the cucumbers

  1. Melt 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 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 the minced parsley.

Finish the sauce

  1. Thicken the sauce with the yolks of 2-3 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
Form the body of the dish and soften into tender pieces as they cook.
Flour
Coats the cucumbers and thickens the stock into a smooth sauce.
Butter
Provides the fat for gentle cooking and a rich, savory flavor.
Veal stock or gravy
Serves as the liquid base that becomes the body of the sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce, giving it a creamy texture.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the mild cucumbers.

The step that matters

Thickening with egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken a sauce as their proteins set gently with heat, but they scramble and turn grainy if the sauce boils hard. Keep the heat low and stir steadily once the yolks go in so the sauce becomes smooth and creamy.

Swap the white pepper

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

  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, egg, parsley. 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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