Has anyone ever cooked a cucumber?

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scb

I love cooked cukes. I think its called garniture Doria in the french cannon. Turned sections of cucumber sautéed in clarified butter (or even with a hit of brown butter). The taste is surprising, very intense and peppery. Not the sort of thing to serve with gentle white fish.

--Al

In college I had a Malaysian roomate of Chinese heritage. She taught me to make this simple cucumber dish:

Peel the cucumbers and cut them lengthwise. Scrape out the seeds with a spoon.

Slice them into crescent-shaped slices about 1/8" thick.

In vegetable oil, saute minced garlic and fresh ginger briefly. Add the cucumber slices and stir fry them for a minute or two. Add toasted sesame seeds, stir, and cover the pan. Turn off the heat and allow the cucumbers to sit for a couple of minutes.

Season lightly with light soy sauce, stir, and transfer to a serving dish. Drizzle a bit of toasted sesame oil over the cucumber. Garnish with toasted sesame seeds.

This is excellent hot or leftover, cold. I think it works best with regular cucumbers rather than the English (seedless) ones, and it's a great way to use up those jumbo cucumbers in your garden.

We've made this for years. Wish I could remember where I got it. At a guess I'd say it was central European.

Stewed Cucumers

3 cukes, sliced thick
6 slices bacon
3 tbls flour
Salt & pepper to taste
2 onions, sliced thin
1 stick butter
1 tbls dry mustard
Water

Salt cukes heavily, place in a collander, let drain at least 1/2 hour.

Cook bacon until crisp, reserving grease.

Rinse cukes. Pat dry. Fry cukes and onion in bacon fat (adding more if necessary) until browned. Drain on paper towels. Pour fat from pan.

Return cuke mixture to pan. Add 4-6 tablespoons water, the mustard, butter, and flour. Let stew until tender.

This makes a nice side dish, albeit on the bland side. To kick it up. stir in a little curry powder or garam masala.

Great suggestions. I've never tried cooking one (and hadn't seen any recipes on how to). I guess I'll have to try it now.

Hmmm. Cucumbers are basically thin skinned summer squash, though certainly different than zucchini. I may have to try a stir-fry sesame cucumber salad for next week's dinner hike. A bit of lemongrass might be a nice addition.

mjb.

I ran this as a special. I figured it would be a little too out there for people, but I thought it was good, so I ran it for myself. Actually sold quite a few, and not all to vegetarians, although the vegetarians were glad to see something offered other than the run of the mill stir fry. Got good feedback from the guests that did try it.

Grilled Stuffed Cucumber
a whole Cucumber, peeled and seeds removed, stuffed with sprouted Mung, Adzuki, Lentil, and Garbanzo Beans; brushed with Chile Oil, grilled, sliced and served on a pool of Sesame Spinach Sauce and sprinkled with Aji Nori Furikake

I love cucumbers - but because they are cold and fresh - these recipes sounds interesting but don´t think i could bring myself to cook one myself!!

Teamfat,

If you're going to make comparisons, in terms of texture, water content, and sibling relationships, cukes are more like melons than summer squash.

Treat them like a zucchini and you'll likely be disappointed. Treat them like a muskmelon and you might be on to something.

heck, anything is good with bacon!

Kirby Cukes are best they are smaller and firmer(same cukes used for pickles) good in stir fry concoctionsr and  ratatouie like dishes.

With fish we always served sauteed cucumbers and boiled potatoes in Montreux and Geneva/Switzerland while I was working there.

thanks! i never thought of Swiss as 'regional cooking' but of course they would have!
 

In James Beard's American Cookery (1972), Beard suggests a couple of ways to cook cucumbers--steamed and served with butter or sauteed in butter after dredging them in flour.

 

I'll take mine raw, thank you.

I love fresh pickles, my second favorite cucumber use after raw in a salad or just a snack with salt and pepper.  A while back my wife and I had a nice dinner where one of the dishes had grilled cukes involved, and I was surprised how tasty those bits were.

 

mjb.

A nice way to do it is as a side dish to some other Chinese food. 

 

Slice cucumber in half and remove the kernels and the watery stuff inside. Salt it heavily with coarse salt, put some ice cubes in the groove where the kernels were and put it in the fridge for 30 minutes to slightly dehydrate and firm it up. After that, cut in slices. Heat peanut oil in a wok, put in a good amount of szechuan pepper corns and some dried chilis, roast them until the oil is aromatized and smells like the pepper. Take out the pepper and chilis, and quickly stirfry the cucumber slices. Can be eaten warm, but is usually served as a cold side dish.

 

GM.

If you're one of those people who considered a "cure" of any kind to be cooked (ceviche, or cured ham for example) then pickles!

 

But seriously, cucumber makes a cake with not only a good flavor but a very nice color too.

 

Here's one recipe for it i've found

http://goodyfood.blogspot.com/2010/10/steamed-cucumber-cake.html

lol guys?
the LAST post was
from

 

 

then you guys started to post helpful facts.. but i think the OP is..... gone lol

I find it quite sensible to bump old posts.

A lot of the SOS has already been covered .

Someone obviously found it interesting as well as a good topic to kick around.

I have an early cook book authored by James Beard.

Looked and looked again for the expiry date, but could not find ;-)

 

mimi

Yes...cucumbers without seeds...cook them with little stock, butter, mustard, onions, garlic, wine, lemon juice, lemon and lime zest, creme fraiche...and finish with fresh coriander, tarragon and dill...perfect accompany for any fish...just dont store them to long..because acid cause that cucumbers would go brown..just cook it and eat it..or keep separately sauce and blanched cucumbers, and mix straight before service...

 

or you can take seeds out and fill cucumbers with some meat stew, bake it...top up with gruyere cheese with smoked paprika...leave it to melt...and thats it...

 

just two recipes what came to my mind now..

Weird, I came here from exactly that Google search! So then I clicked the link, and this page came up near the top...so then I clicked the link and I saw your link, so then I clicked it, and I was back at Google, and then I was back here, then back to Google...HELP! I'M TRAPPED IN AN INFINITE LOOP!

 

Or, perhaps oh-so-clever forum posters could learn to answer questions, because at the end of the day, Google has to link somewhere.