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Stewed Cucumbers
Peel 2 or 3 cucumbers that are too large for serving in the usual way. Cut them in quarters lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Cut again in inch and a half lengths, and throw them for half an hour or more in very cold water. Stew until tender in enough slightly salted, boiling water to cover them. Drain off the water, turn into a hot dish and simply dress with melted butter, salt, and pepper, with the addition, if liked, of 1 spoonful of rich hot cream. They may be served on crisp toast at breakfast or lunch with eggs, or to accompany an omelet, or with parsley butter as an accompaniment to a fish course, or with fish-balls. The wonder is, when so many think the cucumber indigestible, that it is not more used as a cooked vegetable.
A straightforward treatment for overgrown cucumbers, which cook down to something closer to summer squash than salad. The main thing the original leaves vague is the cooking time.
- TimingThe original only says "stew until tender." Expect somewhere in the range of 5 to 15 minutes at a gentle boil depending on size and maturity, after which the pieces will begin to break up. Start testing with a knife tip at about five minutes and drain as soon as they yield.
- Which cucumbersThe recipe assumes the oversized, yellowing, thick-skinned fruit a kitchen garden produces late in the season. Supermarket slicing cucumbers work if you peel them and remove the seed core; thin-skinned English cucumbers, being softer, are more likely to overcook.
- The cold-water soakHalf an hour in very cold water firms the flesh, as the original directs. Whether it does much for the bitterness of over-mature fruit is less certain, but the soak is worth doing rather than skipping.
- "1 spoonful"Unspecified in the original. A tablespoon of cream for two or three cucumbers is about right; more turns the dish watery once the cucumbers release their own liquid.
- DrainingCucumbers hold a great deal of water. Drain them well and let them sit a moment in the hot colander before dressing, or the melted butter will separate into a thin pool.
- Parsley butterFor the fish-course version, mash softened butter with chopped parsley, a squeeze of lemon and salt, and let it melt over the hot cucumbers at table.
- YieldTwo or three large cucumbers serve three to four as a side dish, or two if piled on toast as a lunch dish.
Cooked cucumber was ordinary in English and American kitchens well into the nineteenth century, stewed, fried in batter or stuffed and braised like a small marrow; the salad cucumber we now take for granted is only one of its uses. The closing remark about indigestibility reflects a long-standing suspicion of the raw cucumber, which appears in household advice books for generations and was often blamed for summer stomach complaints. Cooking was the recommended remedy, and it also gave the gardener something to do with fruit that had grown too big and seedy for slicing, a practical concern in any house that grew its own. The suggested pairings here \fffffd eggs, omelet, fish-balls, toast \ffff'fd place the dish squarely in the breakfast and luncheon repertoire rather than at dinner.