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Fried Cucumbers
Slice, sprinkle with salt and pepper, dip in egg, then in cracker dust; fry until brown.
A terse two-line formula that assumes you already know how to breaded-fry a vegetable. The unstated step is the one that decides the outcome: cucumber is mostly water, and it has to be drawn out and blotted before the coating goes on.
- Salt first, then waitSlice about 1/2 inch thick, salt the slices, and let them drain in a colander 20-30 minutes, then pat thoroughly dry. Breading applied to wet cucumber slides off in the fat and steams instead of browning.
- Cracker dustThis is soda or water crackers crushed fine — the period equivalent of dry breadcrumbs. Unsalted saltines rolled with a pin work; panko browns faster and stays crisper if you prefer it.
- Choice of cucumberField cucumbers of the period were often seedy and thick-skinned, and many cooks would have peeled them and scooped the seed core, though this recipe says only 'slice'. Modern Kirby or Persian cucumbers need neither, and hold their shape better in the pan.
- The fat and its heatThe recipe gives no fat or heat; shallow-fry in about 1/4 inch of oil or a mix of oil and butter at roughly 350-375F. Cooler than that and the crumbs soak; much hotter and they darken before the cucumber has softened at all.
- TimingTwo to three minutes a side is enough. The aim is a browned crust over a slice still slightly firm in the middle, not a collapsed one.
- Egg washOne beaten egg loosened with a tablespoon of water or milk coats roughly two medium cucumbers. Season the crumbs as well as the slices; the coating is where the salt registers on the palate.
- Yield and servingTwo medium cucumbers serve four as a side dish. Drain on a rack rather than paper, salt at once, and serve immediately - they lose their crispness quickly off the heat.
Fried cucumber belongs to a broad American habit of treating any firm vegetable as a candidate for the egg-and-crumb treatment, the same handling given to green tomatoes, eggplant and salsify in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century cookery. Cucumbers reached the table cooked far more often then than now: they were stewed, stuffed, and fried, partly because summer gluts had to be used and partly because the coarse, seedy varieties of the day were less pleasant raw than the thin-skinned types bred since.