I’m not a huge fan of cucumbers. It’s not that I don’t like them, I just don’t crave them like I crave other vegetables. It seems like anytime I buy a cucumber, I use about half of it for whatever recipe I am making and then inevitably let the remainder go to waste. Well, in this week’s CSA box, I received not one, but FOUR cucumbers! Two regular green ones and two Boothby’s Blondes. The Boothby’s Blondes are an heirloom variety from Livermore, Maine. They are oval in shape and look like bright yellow potatoes. They were beautiful cucumbers, but how was I, a veteran cucumber waster, going to use them all up?

It was time to hit up my trusty copy of How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman for some ideas. I flipped to the cucumber section and was immediately struck by his recipe for Crispy Sautéed Cucumbers. I’ve never really thought of cucumbers as being a vegetable that you would want to cook. It kind of seems like a betrayal against everything a cucumber stands for - refreshing flavor, crisp texture, etc. But, it also sounded just odd enough that it could be good.

The recipe is quite simple. Cut a cucumber in half and remove the seeds. Then, slice the cucumber into ½ to ¾ inch chunks. Toss the chunks in a bag full of flour, shake off any excess flour and then fry the cucumbers in butter or oil, turning occasionally, until crispy on the outside and tender on the inside (about 10 minutes.) To finish, simply season with salt, pepper, lemon zest and parsley. Mark’s recipe also calls for tossing the fried cucumbers with sectioned pieces of lemon, but I skipped this step. Instead, I served them with homemade tzatziki sauce on the side, thereby using up even more of my cucumber surplus! I had kind of a dueling cucumbers theme going on.

The fried cucumbers were good, but not mind-blowing. They had a nice mellow cucumber flavor. Not surprisingly, due to their watery nature, they didn’t stay crisp for long. I was actually amazed that they were able to crisp up as much as they did. A combination of flour and cornmeal might have worked better than flour alone. I think the cornmeal would provide a nice crunch even after the cucumbers themselves were no longer crispy. I got the feeling while eating them that fried cucumbers must be a Southern dish. There was just something about them that felt very summery and Southern, akin to fried green tomatoes. While I may not have been transformed into a cucumber addict, this is certainly a quick and easy to way to use up leftover cucumbers.