SFist in the Kitchen: Cucumbers
What's long and green and covered with a bumpy skin? What? A snake? Oh. Uh, and it's a vegetable (well, sort of). That's right, cucumbers!
We found cucumbers by the armful at this weekend's Jack London Square farmer's market. Pickling cucumbers, Japanese cucumbers, standard American cucumbers. The abundance flaunted itself, and challenged us to take some into the SFist test kitchen, where we could gently wash and admire this relative of the melon and squash before we sliced them into pieces and popped them into our hungry mouths. The SFist test kitchen is a cruel, cruel place for fruits and vegetables.
Photos by Melissa Schneider
Cucumbers have been with us a long time, though it took them a thousand years to travel from India to the Mediterranean. You still find cucumber throughout Indian cuisine, with raita, the cool yogurt condiment that soothes the tongue after fiery food, the most common cucumber transplant from that country.
We did the obvious thing with our pickling cucumbers, whose thin skin allows a brine to penetrate more easily. We don't have a nice cool area to use for barrel-fermenting pickles, so we opted for the "Classic Bread-and-Butter Pickles" you'll find in the multi-authored Quick Pickles, a book we eagerly recommend for the instant gratification of flavorful pickles of all shapes and sizes.
We thought about having High Tea and serving some type of cucumber sandwich with the Japanese cucumbers we found, but our debutante friends were all out of town for the Fourth. Fortunately our friend Fatemeh hosted a party yesterday and served a Persian mint vinegar syrup on the rocks with julienned cucumber, a refreshing and tasty combination. In addition to that intriguing drink, a suggestion for sautéed cucumbers in Chez Panisse Vegetables piqued our interest. Peel, seed, and dice cucumbers, and sauté in a couple tablespoons of butter, one or two tablespoons of water (to moderate the temperature and keep them from burning), and a little bit of salt. We used the buttery cukes as sauce for pasta, which we served with a little round of packed, dill-spiked salmon rillettes and a salsa of mango, lime juice, red onion, mint, and serrano chile. This summery dish wanted a clean, light wine, so we served it with a crisp Prosecco, a sparkling wine from the northeastern part of Italy. We firmly believe that it's always a good time to pour a sparkling wine.