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Preserve

Cucumbers in Pouhtte Sauce

Cucumbers in Poulette Sauce is a dish of cucumbers simmered in a sauce of flour, butter, stock, and seasoned with salt, pepper, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,050 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cucumbers in Pouhtte Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Cut cucumbers into quarters lengthwise, remove the green rind and seeds, then cut into 2-inch long and 1-inch thick pieces.

  2. Simmer cucumbers in boiling water until tender.

Make the sauce and finish

  1. In a separate pan, make a sauce with flour, butter, salt, white pepper, and chicken stock.

  2. Reheat the cooked cucumbers in the sauce, adding more seasoning if needed.

  3. Just before serving, stir in the beaten egg yolk and lemon juice.

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 + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Cucumber + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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 main body of the dish, becoming tender when simmered.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and adds richness and smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the chicken stock into a smooth, coating sauce.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce, giving it a velvety texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens when heated, but if the sauce is too hot when it is stirred in, the yolk can scramble and turn grainy. Stir it in just before serving, off the heat or over low heat.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, onion, egg, lemon, flour, butter, chicken):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, onion, egg, lemon, flour, butter, chicken. 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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