I adore cucumbers. They are cool and crunchy and have a flavour I really like.
I use them in or on lots of things I already cook. Today for lunch I even had a cucumber sandwich.
But I’ve been wondering if there are any recipes for actually cooking with cucumbers. Now I don’t mean throwing some bits in the fried rice or pasta salad. I was thinking of something that would transfer the flavour of the cucumber. (Think cucumber martini, yes there’s a garnish, but the flavour of the cucumber married with the vodka is what makes it so yummy!)
And I was thinking more of hot dishes than cold ones.
So, what do you think? Got any suggestions?
I tried googling but it was all salads and chilled soup.
I have one, not sure if it’s what you’re looking for, but just in case I’ll post it. I’ve made it a couple of times and it’s got potential, but I kind of suck in the kitchen. It’s adapted from “How to Cook Everything” by Mark Bittman.
Crisp sauteed cukes w/lemon
1lb cukes
1tbsp salt (if cukes are not firm)
1 lemon
1tbsp butter, or peanut, olive or other oil
At least 2c flour for dredging
Salt & pepper to taste
Fresh parsley for garnish
Peel cukes if waxed. Cut in half lengthwise and scoop out seeds. Cut into 3/4inch chunks. If the cukes aren’t super firm, place the chunks in a colander and sprinkle them with the salt. Shake to distribute evenly and let drain for ~20 min. Rinse, dry and proceed with recipe. If cukes are firm, skip the salting.
Zest the lemon to get 1tsp zest. Cut lemon in half through its equator and section it. Set zest & sections aside.
Place the butter or oil in a large skillet over med-high heat. Place ~2c flour in a plastic or paper bag, and when the fat is hot, put a few chunks of cukes in the bag at a time. Shake well, then add to skillet. Repeat until cukes are used up.
Cook over med-high heat, stirring and turning occasionally for ~10min, until the exterior of the cukes are crisp and the interiors are tender enough to be easily pierced w/a thin bladed knife. Add the zest and sections, along w/S&P and cook 1 minute more.
Garnish and serve.
There’s at least one more recipe in there for actually cooked cucumbers, but it involves dill, so I never made it.
… very succinctly presented recipe for warm cucumber dill sauce from Delia Online:
For the warm cucumber and dill sauce:
1 lb (450 g) cucumber
1 level tablespoon fresh dill, chopped
1 oz (25 g) butter
2½ fl oz (65 ml) crème fraîche
1 dessertspoon lemon juice
salt and freshly milled black pepper
To make the sauce: first pare off the peel of the cucumber with a potato peeler, as thinly as possible as the green bit just beneath the surface of the peel is important for the colour of the sauce. Then cut the cucumber in half lengthways and remove the seeds, using a teaspoon to scoop them out. Now cut the cucumber into ¼ inch (5 mm) dice.
Next, heat the butter in a smallish pan over a very low heat, add the diced cucumber and some salt and toss it around in the butter. Then put a lid on and, keeping the heat as low as possible, let the cucumber sweat gently for about 10 minutes, shaking the pan from time to time to make sure none of it catches on the base. As soon as the pieces of cucumber are just tender (but still retaining some bite), stir in the crème fraîche, dill and a little lemon juice. Season with more salt if it needs it and some freshly milled black pepper, then warm through gently.
Now tip half the sauce into a liquidiser or food processor, whiz until it’s smooth, then mix together with the rest of the sauce and set aside.
…This is from a salmon pattie recipe, but I’ve had the same warm cucumber dill sauce as an accompianiement to Fresh Salmon poached in Court Boullion. The difference was slight in that it used heavy cream, insted of creme fraiche. Quite delicious, but it might be a hard sell to the traditional American palate that expects cool cucumber.
It’s pretty old school french to cook cucumbers at a slow sweat in butter. I’ve also heard of cucumber beurre blanc.
2 qts. water
4-5 lg. potatoes, peeled & cleaned
3 med. cucumbers, peeled
Salt & pepper to taste
1/2 pt. light cream
Fresh dill
Boil potatoes in 2 quarts of water. Add a little salt. Cook until potatoes are done. Remove potatoes to bowl, leaving water in pan. Mash the potatoes, place back in pot with water. Grate cucumbers or cut very, very thin (paper thin). Add cucumbers to potato water, boil until cucumbers are transparent. Remove from heat and add cream, salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle with dill. If not serving immediately, do not add cream and dill, just heat soup mixture until very warm for serving then add cream and dill. This is delicious and fresh tasting.
A pretty accurate basis recipe or jumping off point for a warm cucumber soup. You just can’t get away from the dill with warm cukes. You can also add them to a hot or cold Borscht.
There’s a spicy cucumber dish that’s really good that I had in Japan. No idea whether the recipes that I’ve found match up to it though, as the one restaurant I had it at, everything they made was awesome.
3 cucumbers
1-2 teaspoons salt
1 garlic clove
1-2 slices ginger
1 teaspoon ra-yu (Chinese red chile oil)
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon soy sauce
2 pinches each of white and black sesame seeds
3 shakes of shichimi (it’s pretty common stuff)
Take off most of the skin of the cucumbers (needn’t be all), slice into small chunks, cover in the salt and let sit for ~20 minutes.
When the cucumber has softened a bit (?), wash away the salt and dry.
Mince up the garlic and ginger, and mix up all the ingredients. Let cool in the refrigerator and then eat! (Note that you can adjust the amount of ra-yu and shichimi to get your preferred level of spiciness.)
Perhaps HazelNutCoffee knows what the traditional recipe is, as I believe it’s a Korean import.
I’ve had a similar cucumber salad (sunomono) recipe that included chunks of boiled octopus (Tako), and it was really good- Here’s a recipe that I found. (I’m sure squid, crab, or shrimp could also substitute.)
Most things you do with zucchini can be done with cucumber, though it will be a bit waterier. When I lived in a zucchini-less land, I regularly added cucumbers to casseroles, stir frys, etc.