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Cucumbers Fried in Batter

Battered cucumber slices fried until golden, served as a side dish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,991 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cucumbers Fried in Batter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the cucumbers and slice them into 1/16-inch thick pieces.

  2. Season the slices with salt and pepper.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg until light, then mix in the milk, salt, and pepper.

  2. Gradually add the flour and beat until smooth.

  3. Dip each cucumber slice into the batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat oil in a deep pan until smoking hot.

  2. Carefully drop the battered cucumbers into the oil, one at a time.

  3. Fry until golden brown on one side, then turn and fry the other side.

  4. Use a skimmer to lift them out and drain on paper towels.

  5. Serve as a side dish with steak.

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. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Cucumber + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 body and moist, crisp-tender filling inside the fried coating.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it cling to the cucumber slices as they fry.
Milk
Thins the batter to a coating consistency and adds moisture to the fritter.
All-purpose flour
Forms the batter's structure, setting into a crisp golden coating when fried.

The step that matters

Heating the oil until smoking hot. If the oil is not hot enough, the batter absorbs it and becomes greasy instead of crisping quickly. Very hot oil sets the coating fast and keeps the cucumber inside moist.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, egg, milk, flour):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, egg, milk, flour. 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.

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