Thursday, September 1, 2011

Baked Cucumber Rounds

A dear friend brought over some fresh-picked cucumbers last week, and I was eager to use them! First I baked some cucumber bread, which is nothing like zucchini bread, surprisingly! Perhaps I will share that recipe later. After the sweet bread, I wanted to try something savory. So, I made these...


And no, they aren't fried! These Baked Cucumber Rounds are a great side dish, or served as an appetizer. I couldn't stop eating them they were so good!

***Baked Cucumber Rounds 
1 large cucumber, cut into 1/4" - 1/2" thick slices (about 24 slices)
3/4 cup mayo
3/4 cup cornmeal (Bob's Red Mill and Arrowhead Mills both make certified GF cornmeal)
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper

Preheat oven to 400. Very lightly grease a cookie sheet. In one bowl, mix cornmeal, salt and pepper. Put mayo in another bowl. Dip both sides of cucumber slices into mayo and then into cornmeal mixture. If cucumbers have too much moisture, pat them dry with a paper towel before coating in mayo and cornmeal. Place coated cucumber slices on baking sheet.  Bake for about 15 minutes, turn over. Bake for another 12-15 minutes, or until breading has browned on both sides. Handle carefully as the breading comes off easily.

7 comments:

  1. Thanks for the idea! I have some cukes I need to get rid of. I went through a major purge of my fridge and freezer last night, getting rid of the stuff I just know I'm never gonna eat. If I know that, it's just taking up valuable real estate. But I still have to convince myself it's okay to throw things away. But not those cukes!

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  2. Intriguing! I've got a glut of less-than-stellar cukes right now, and I know the boys won't want them since they're not super-crunchy. We'll be trying this one soon ;)

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  3. Fantastic! If either (or both!) of you try these, let me know what you think! The cornmeal coating gets crispy, but the cukes are soft and warm in the middle. I couldn't quit eating them!

    The mayo just lightly coats the cukes. Don't worry about really saturating them. They are wet enough that the cornmeal breading will stick anyway. Hope you like them!

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  4. I really liked them! Unfort, both boys were sick and didn't care to eat much of anything, so I can't report on their impressions.

    I used a mustard-mayo combo for the wet dredge since I discovered too late that we were nearly out of mayo (we are perpetually nearly out of mayo, I don't know why that is!), left the salt/pepper out of the cornmeal to compensate...terrific! I did notice the coating didn't want to stay on the cukes once they were done, and I wonder if a cornstarch/flour-y dredge before the mayo and cornmeal would help?

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  5. Jesse - thanks for reporting back in! I bet the mustard was a great addition! :) I've pan fried cukes using almost the same technique, and it had the same issue with breading crumbling off...that was before I went off of wheat and reduced dairy, so I think I used parmesan in that too...which you would think would help it all stick! Not sure if it is just because they cukes are so juicy, or because they don't absorb as much of the mayo? Anyway...I'm rambling...Thanks for giving this a shot, and I'm glad you liked it!

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  6. Thanks for the recipe! I didn't have any cornmeal but I did have Bob's Red Mill Almond Meal. It took a bit longer to get them nice and crispy but we really enjoyed them! :)

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  7. I replaced mayo with one egg+2tbsp sour cream and used Panko iso corn meal. Nice and crisp and all stayed on. Delicious.

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