Skip to main content
Main

Fried Cucumbers, No. 1

Cucumber slices coated in egg and crumbs, then fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fried Cucumbers, No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the cucumbers lengthwise.

Coat

  1. Dip the cucumber slices in the beaten egg.

  2. Coat the slices in cracker crumbs, bread crumbs, corn meal, or flour.

Fry

  1. Fry in hot butter or lard until golden brown.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Cucumber + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together344 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Cucumber + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,346 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the main vegetable; slicing lengthwise gives flat pieces that fry quickly.
Egg
Binds the coating so the crumbs or flour adhere to the cucumber slices.
Cracker crumbs or bread crumbs or corn meal or flour
Form a crisp coating that browns in the hot fat.
Butter or lard
Frying fat that carries heat to the coating, producing browning and crispness.

The step that matters

Fry in hot butter or lard until golden brown. If the fat is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisp. Hot fat sets the crumb coating quickly, so it browns and seals before the cucumber releases too much moisture.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, bread, butter):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes