There is no salad, excepting, perhaps, lettuce and cucumbers, that is more improved by the use of ice than tomatoes.
Raw Cucumbers.
Pare neatly from end to end, and lay in ice-water one hour. Wipe them and slice thin. Season with pepper, salt and vinegar—and oil, if you wish—laying some bits of ice among them, with thin slices of onion. Cucumbers should be gathered while the dew is on them, and eaten the same day. Leave them in a cool place until you are ready to pare them.
Fried Cucumbers. ✠
Pare and lay in ice-water half an hour. Cut lengthwise, into slices nearly half an inch thick, and lay in ice-water ten minutes longer. Wipe each piece dry with a soft cloth, sprinkle with pepper and salt, and dredge with flour. Fry to a delicate brown in sweet clarified dripping, nice lard, or butter.
Many declare that cucumbers are never fit to eat unless fried, and they are assuredly far more wholesome than when served raw.
Stewed Cucumbers.
Pare, lay in ice-water an hour; then, slice a quarter of an inch thick. Pick out the seeds with a penknife, and put into a saucepan with enough boiling water to cover them. Stew fifteen minutes, and drain off the water. Add enough from the boiling tea-kettle to keep them from burning; season with salt and pepper, and stir carefully in a tablespoonful of butter—or two, should the quantity of cucumber be large. Stew gently ten minutes, and add half a cupful of rich milk; thicken with a little flour, boil up, and serve in a deep dish, squeezing some lemon-juice in at the last.
This is a popular English dish, although it seems a strange one to American ideas.