No. 2732

Cucumbers Fried, Breaded English Style and Fried a la Villeroi

Concombres Frits, Panes a l'Anglaise et Frits a la Villeroi

Fried.—Cut some peeled cucumbers in slices a quarter of an inch thick by one and three-quarters inches in diameter; empty out the center seed parts with a three-quarter inch diameter tube; salt over for fifteen minutes, then drain, wipe, dip them in flour, and fry to a fine golden color in very hot frying fat.

Fried Breaded English Style.—Cut the cucumbers in two-inch lengths and then once across in the center; peel, remove the inner seeds, round the corners, and cook them in salted water. Drain, wipe, immerse in beaten eggs, bread-crumb English style, and fry to a nice color, having fennel sauce (No. 463), served apart.

Fried a la Villeroi.—Prepare and cook the cucumbers the same as the glazed ones (No. 2733), and cover with cold Villeroi sauce (No. 560); place on a baking sheet to cool; take them up with a thin knife; dip each piece in egg and bread-crumbs, fry to a good color, and dress on a folded napkin.

← No. 2731 Corn Cut Up, Succotash and Corn Pancakes Tomatoes, Corn & Garden Vegetables No. 2733 Cucumbers Glazed →

For the Modern Kitchen

Three treatments of one vegetable, written for a brigade that had the cross-referenced sauces already standing. The hinge is the Villeroi version: the coating sauce must be reduced thick enough to set solid when cold, or the pieces will not hold their jacket through the egg-and-crumb.

Which cucumberRanhofer assumes a thick field cucumber with a developed seed core — the sort you hollow with a tube. A modern English or Persian cucumber has almost no core and too much water; buy the fat, waxy-skinned ones and peel them heavily.
The three-quarter-inch tubeAn apple corer or a plain round cutter of that diameter does the job on the sliced version. For the shorter pieces of the breaded version, a melon baller or a small spoon clears the seed channel.
SaltingFifteen minutes of salt draws out surface water so the flour adheres and the fat does not spit. Drain and wipe genuinely dry — any film of brine will slacken the coating.
Bread-crumb English stylePane a l'anglaise is the standard three-stage breading: flour, beaten egg seasoned with a little oil and salt, then fine dry crumbs. It is not panko; use fine white crumbs sieved from stale bread.
Frying fatThe book gives no temperatures; 'very hot frying fat' is judged by eye. In modern terms aim for roughly 375F: much below that and the slices absorb fat and slump, much above and the crumbs colour before the cucumber has softened.
Fennel sauce, No. 463Served apart, per the recipe; the formula is in the sauce chapter and not reproduced here. Period fennel sauces were generally built on a light veloute or butter sauce with chopped fennel, and the herb rather than the bulb is the likelier reading. Bulb fennel, sweated soft and pureed into a light veloute, gives a close approximation.
Villeroi sauce, No. 560A thick allemande-type sauce, reduced until a spoon drawn through leaves a clean track. Ranhofer specifies covering the cooked, dried cucumber pieces with the sauce cold, then setting them on a baking sheet to cool firm before breading. Skipping that setting stage risks the sauce weeping into the fat.
The glazed preparation (No. 2733)The cross-reference sends you to the glazed cucumbers, which in a preparation of this kind would be cut, trimmed and cooked until tender but still holding shape. Blot them dry before the Villeroi coating goes on.
Yield and serviceThe recipe gives no quantities or number served; scale to the dish it garnishes. The folded napkin absorbed fat and kept the crust crisp on the platter; a rack over a warm dish does the same with less laundry.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer wrote The Epicurean (1894) out of thirty years running the kitchen at Delmonico's, and the numbered cross-references are the giveaway that it was compiled as a professional's reference rather than a domestic cookbook — a line like "cover with cold Villeroi sauce (No. 560)" only works if the sauce is already on the stove. Cooked cucumber, unfamiliar to many American readers now, was entirely ordinary in nineteenth-century French and English kitchens, where the vegetable was stewed, glazed, stuffed and fried. The Villeroi treatment — masking a cooked item in a stiff sauce, chilling it solid, then breading and frying — is the same technique behind croquettes and the classic sole or sweetbreads Villeroi; the name is generally traced to the Villeroy family of the French court, though the attribution is traditional rather than documented. The "folded napkin" service was a dining-room convention of the era for anything fried.