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Russian Cucumbers
Pare cucumber with fluted knife, cut in 1 in. slices; cook till tender, chill and scoop out center to make rings. Fill with bits of left-over vegetables mixed with Russian dressing. Serve on bed of shredded lettuce, garnish with chopped watercress.
A cold composed salad built from cooked cucumber rings, meant for a meatless luncheon course. The whole thing hinges on not overcooking the cucumber.
- "Cook till tender"Simmer or steam the slices only until a knife tip meets slight resistance, roughly 3 to 4 minutes for one-inch pieces. Cucumber collapses into water very quickly; a slice that is fully soft will not hold a filling.
- Chill before scoopingCold cucumber is firmer and far easier to hollow. Drain the slices well, spread them on a towel and refrigerate until cold, then remove the seedy center with a small round cutter or the wide end of a piping tip.
- Fluted knifeA ridged garnishing or channel knife of the sort commonly called for in period cookbooks for decorative paring. A vegetable peeler gives a plain edge that works just as well, or use a crinkle cutter for the slicing.
- Cucumber choiceUse a straight, thick field cucumber so the rings are wide enough to fill. Waxed supermarket cucumbers should be peeled regardless of what knife you use.
- Russian dressing of the periodIn books of this era it is mayonnaise mixed with chili sauce or ketchup, sometimes with grated onion, chopped pimiento or horseradish. It is not the pickle-heavy relish version sold today; a mayonnaise base with a spoonful of chili sauce is closer to the intent.
- The fillingCooked, cooled and diced small: peas, carrots, green beans, beets, potato. Dress lightly and fill just before serving, since a wet filling will weep into the lettuce.
- YieldOne large cucumber gives about six to eight rings, enough for three or four salad plates. Allow two rings per person as a first course.
Cucumber served hot or warm was ordinary in nineteenth-century cookery, and the ring-and-filling treatment here is characteristic of the interwar vogue for the "molded" and "stuffed" salad, where vegetables were cut into containers and packed with something else. Russian dressing is an American invention rather than a Russian one, generally traced to the early twentieth century and named, it is often said, for an original version that included caviar; by this period it had commonly settled into mayonnaise tinted with chili sauce.