Cucumber Sandwiches

Cucumber sandwiches. Afternoon tea. The British upper class. The Importance of Being Earnest. blah blah blah

It’s simple. It’s been written up a hundred times. Slice some cucumbers paper thin, drain them and pat them dry, put them on buttered bread and (ugh) cut off the crusts. OK, I tried it. It’s boring.

When a British sandwich manages to be merely boring, I guess you could call that a victory, considering some of the horrors British sandwiches have foisted on the Tribunal in the past year. I suppose I could try some different variations (and I did, one of those sandwiches above has mayonnaise instead of butter on the bread, SHOCKING) but I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to be picking up on here. It’s like they’ve refined the life right out of the sandwich and people have been Weekend at Bernies-ing this thing for the past 150 years.

Don’t get me wrong. Yes, cucumbers are delicious, and delicious in sandwiches. But the combination of cucumber, butter, and bread is a little boring, and mayonnaise isn’t much better. I’d rather have them in a banh mi, or a salad, or as a quick refrigerator pickle. I’d rather have them garnishing a plate of larb, or a Hendrick’s and tonic. I’d rather just eat plain old cucumbers with or without a little salt than wrap them in white bread and butter and pretend I’m sophisticated because of it.

When I think of cucumber sandwiches, I think of the American variety, which is more of an open-faced hors d-oeuvre than an actual sandwich–slices of cocktail rye covered in a cream cheese spread, with a single slice of cucumber on top, often sprinkled with dill weed. They’re simple to make, elegant enough to bring to a party but substantial enough to gobble while getting drunk at said party.

First, you get a loaf of cocktail rye bread.

That’s about 40 slices of bread, or 39 if you get a loaf with a double-thick end piece like I did.

For the spread, some people just mix some dry Italian dressing mix into some cream cheese–eww. Instead, I softened 8oz of cream cheese (then added a couple tablespoons of mayonnaise to make it even more spreadable), and added white pepper, minced garlic, onion juice, salt, and a couple dashes of Worcestershire sauce.

You slice the cucumbers a bit thicker for these than for the English variety, but not terribly thick. I went a notch or two thicker on my mandoline and sliced 2 cucumbers directly into a colander. I salted the cucumber slices lightly, mixed it all together, and let them drain for 20 minutes or so before patting them dry with paper towels.

To assemble, I simply spread the cream cheese mixture on each slice of cocktail rye as I pulled it off the loaf, making sure to completely cover the bread on one side, and laid them out on a cookie sheet (I could only fit 24 of them on the cookie sheet so the other 15 ended up on a plate). Then I put a single slice of cucumber on each, and finally sprinkled a pinch of dried dillweed over the top.

My family devoured these over the course of an afternoon. They may not feature the cucumber as prominently as the English variety–the cream cheese, obviously, takes on a major role, but the cocktail rye itself was a seeded variety so there was a distinct caraway flavor as well, not to mention the dill–but I think that makes them more interesting. There’s simply more going on in this sandwich.

The cucumber was not completely buried, though. Since we’re using a thicker slice of cucumber, we’re allowing the cooling flavor of the cuke more space on the stage. We’re just giving it some stronger backing players. It’s an ensemble, rather than a one-man show.

But Wait, There’s More

In the Wikipedia article, buried in one of the paragraphs, is a half-assed mention of another version of the cucumber sandwich. “Because of English influence on Indian culture, cucumber sandwiches are popular during cricket matches and weekend picnics. The Indian variant is flavoured with green chutney and sometimes contains slices of boiled potatoes.”

Now I love Indian food, and I really really love the spicy green chutney that you get sometimes with samosas. Also, cucumbers apparently originated in India, so you’d think those guys would know what to do with them. I was definitely interested in trying the Indian take on cucumber sandwiches.

India’s a big place though, with many culinary traditions. Curious if there was a standard style of Indian cucumber sandwiches, I asked my friend Chandan, who lives in the northern Indian city of Chandigarh, about his experience with cucumber sandwiches. He passed along a recipe from a friend of his in the hospitality industry that sounded very much like a hybrid of the American and English sandwiches, with an Indian twist. It called for brown bread with cream cheese, chutney, and cucumber. No boiled potatoes in sight, but still worth trying.

I also asked the guys at the Indian market I frequent, Swagat Foods in Oak Forest. For cucumber sandwiches, they suggested a specific type of bread–a firm, square white loaf with a deep brown crust that they source from a bakery in the northwest suburbs.

For the filling, they recommended butter, green chutney, tomatoes, onions, and lettuce in addition to the requisite cucumber slices. I asked them if they ever put potatoes in them. A tentative “you could…” was their reply, with an almost audible ellipse at the end.

I searched the web for Indian cucumber sandwich recipes containing boiled potatoes, but I did not find much reference to that specific combination. What I found fell mostly under 2 main categories: 1) Indian cucumber sandwiches with cream cheese and chutney, much like what Chandan’s friend had described, and 2) the Bombay (Mumbai) sandwich, which turned out to be quite similar to what my guys at Swagat were suggesting.

So I tried them both. Chandan’s friend’s recipe suggested mixing a little milk into the cream cheese to make it easier to spread, then applying a thin layer to both slices of bread. This layer of cream cheese would help keep a subsequent layer of green chutney from soaking into the bread, as well as the juices from the single overlapping layer of salted cucumber slices.

The green chutney is some powerful stuff, spicy, citrusy from the lemon juice and cilantro, with a bit of sweetness from the mint, but its flavor is mellowed by the cooling effect of both the cucumber slices and the cream cheese. This is an excellent combination, and these sandwiches were quickly dispatched.

For the Bombay sandwich, I followed the method described in this video:

In case you don’t feel like watching a 5 minute sandwich-making video, that’s buttered bread, green chutney, sliced boiled potato, salt, tomato, onion, salted cucumber slices, a sprinkling of chaat masala, and another slice of buttered, chutneyed bread. Then the whole thing goes into a panini press to crisp up the bread.

After 2 bites of this sandwich, I pronounced it amazing. Then I picked it up for the third bite and it promptly fell apart. Damian said I might have gone a bit overboard on the tomato, onion, and cucumber. Not the potato though? I asked. “Oh no, you definitely went overboard on the potato,” he said.

This is supposed to be a street food in India, and all I can say is that the people making them there must be way better at putting them together than I am, ’cause this thing required two hands and a plate. I really liked it though. Yet another triumphant vegetarian sandwich for the Tribunal. It goes a bit far afield of the “cucumber sandwich” concept though.

I guess I’m just not refined enough to appreciate the subtlety of the classic British cucumber sandwich. I think that cucumber sandwiches can be pretty thrilling though, with some suitable enhancements. The American version was great, and the Indian variants I tried were amazing. I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface though. I’d love to hear about any more variants of the cucumber sandwich our readers are aware of. Please post your recipes in the comments, and thanks for reading!