Cucumbers aren't just for raw eating. I'm learning to treat it like its cousin, the zucchini. Looking through books in my library, I found an illuminating pork stuffed cucumber recipe tucked into the pages of a 1975 publication by Florence Lin. I own all of her books. My husband refers to her as "Flo". She was modern and practical in how she interpreted classic Chinese techniques. She's a trusted person in my home. She teaches me something every time I cook one of her recipes.
Lin came out of the gate in the mid 1970s with a book on Chinese regional cooking. The timing was right since Nixon had gone to China on his historic trip in 1972. He was the first American president to visit the People's Republic of China. Americans were curious about Chinese culture and foodways.
Each chapter of Florence Lin's Chinese Regional Cookbook opens with a chart that was like a cheat sheet on the recipes. You can scan the pages and select something depending on your time availability, for example. I spotted the pork-stuffed cucumber recipe in the Vegetables chapter. It took 20 minutes of laidback cooking, required no special shopping and offered a glimpse of Shanghai food traditions. I was sold, especially since I had lots of homegrown cucumbers on hand.
More importantly, the cucumber cooked up to a tender richness. They tasted fatty in their soft translucence. The flavor was delicate and elegant. The recipe called for a pork filling but since I'd just stir-fried pork with cucumber and garlic, I decided to go with a ground chicken filling. I later tried a ground shrimp filling and it frankly fought too much with the cucumber to overwhelm it.
The resulting stuffed cucumber cups look somewhat like a dumpling, though there is no wrapper involved. I suppose you could serve them along with dumplings for a great brunch or lunch.
Who Was Florence Lin?
But wait, who was she? I learned a lot from her books but it wasn't until after she passed away in 2018 at the age of 97. In the video below, her close friend Millie Chan offers more details on Lin's life and personality. When Lin wrote cookbooks, the works were not as deeply personal as they are today. People didn't share much as they do now.
The fact that Lin learned to appreciate wine and spirits early on explains why there's a great drinks primer in her Chinese cookbook debut. A woman writing joyfully about pairing wine with Asian food in the 1970s -- that must have been liberating. She discusses Shaoxing rice wine too, down to the temperature to serve it. Lin was serious about drinking well. I like that, especially since my father also taught me to drink wine early on too.
Lin's niece, Jeannette, maintains a lively Chinese American food blog and includes family memories in her aunt's Shanghai spring roll recipe article. My friend Grace Young wrote a wonderful Washington Post obituary on Lin, if you'd like more on her contribution to the food world.
Onwards with the recipe! There are a couple of things to keep in mind.
Why a Ruler Rules in the Kitchen
I keep a ruler in the same drawer as my digital scale because those tools are important. I don't weigh or measure everything but it does help when you're writing or testing recipes. For Lin's cucumber cups that get stuffed, you want a ruler handy. It makes cutting the cucumber with relative precision easier. Once you've made a few initial cuts, the others fall into place.
This metal ruler has been through the dishwasher many times!
Cucumber Size Matters
In the original recipe, Lin calls for 3 cucumbers to yield 15 cups. That means each one would have to be at least 7.5 inches plus say, 1 inch for the ends. She likely used slicing cucumbers about 1 ½ inches wide and peeled them. Doing the math, I suggest two large English cucumbers or three slicers. My homegrown were medium or giant so I had a varied lot to stuff.
In the process of stuffing, I learned that you can remove the meat stuffing, re-scrape the well to enlarge it and re-stuff! If your initial holes are too small, you can have a re-do to use all the meat. The ones near the carrots were too small and I had leftover filling. Keep all that in mind, my friends.
How to Make Cucumber Cups
Demitasse spoons are also among my favorite kitchen tools. They're handy for tasting, stirring small amounts and now, scraping out the insides of cucumber chunks! If I drank espressos, I'd use the small spoons for that, too. For these cucumber cups, I surprisingly found myself using the bowl of the spoon along with the tip of its round handle to scrape and scoop the insides of the cucumber cups.
AND, after the prepping the cucumber cups, that same spoon was used to fill the cups. So, small demitasse spoons are super useful for tight situations like this one.
Substitutes, Make-Ahead and Serving Suggestions
At the end of the recipe, Lin adds that you may replace the cucumber with zucchini but honestly, the cucumber cooks up in an elegant manner yet holds it shape. I'd stick with cucumber. They're unexpected and taste extra special.
Serve these chicken stuffed cucumber cups as a main course with rice and a stir-fried vegetable. The sauce is nice so spoon it up! You can make these cucumber cups in advance (see Notes in the recipe) so they'd be great along with dumplings or crispy panfried noodles for a fun menu.
Chicken Stuffed Cucumber
Ingredients
- 2 large English cucumbers, or 3 slicing cucumbers (about 2 ½ pounds total)
- ½ pound ground chicken, pork, or turkey
- 1 tablespoon water
- 2 teaspoons Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry (see Notes)
- ¾ teaspoon soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon sugar
- 16 small dice carrot, about ¼ inch (optional)
- 2 tablespoons neutral oil or garlic oil from stir-fried cucumber recipe (see link in Notes)
- 1 cup lightly salted chicken broth
- ½ teaspoon cornstarch diluted in 1 tablespoon water
Instructions
- If you like, peel the cucumbers fully or partially to leave green stripes on the flesh. With English cucumbers, the skin is tender to eat. Trim the ends then cut each cucumber crosswise into 1 ½ inch-long sections. There should be about 16. Use a demitasse spoon or similar small teaspoon to dig out the seeds of each cucumber section -- but don’t dig through to the other end. Leave ¼ to ½ inch of the seedy center in the cup. Use the bowl or the spoon and if the handle’s tip is round, use it to scoop and smooth the inner well. The resulting cucumber section should be cup-like to hold the filling. Discard the seeds and dump out any water from the cucumber cup.
- In a small bowl, stir together the ground meat, water, rice wine, soy sauce, cornstarch, ½ teaspoon salt, and sugar. Stir in one direction to mix very well into a firm mixture. Reuse the spoon that you scooped the cucumber cups with to stuff the filling into each cucumber. Top with a piece of carrot.
- Heat a large, deep skillet (or sauteuse pan) over medium heat. Add the oil, and when barely shimmering, add the filled cucumbers, meat side up. Gently fry for 2 minutes. Add the chicken broth and remaining ½ teaspoon salt. Bring to a boil, cover, then cook, then lower the heat to medium-low and cook for about 20 minutes or until the cucumbers are tender. At the 8 and 15 mark baste with the cooking liquid. Poke the cucumber with a knife tip to gauge doneness.
- When done there should be about ⅓ to ½ cup of liquid left in the pan. Turn off the heat before transferring the cooked cucumber cups to a serving dish. Reheat the pan to a gentle simmer, add the cornstarch slurry, and when thickened (about 20 seconds), pour over the cucumbers. Serve hot.
