The Saturday Cook: Spicy chile crisped breadcrumbs add crunch and umami to chunks of chilled cucumbers for a refreshing summer side dish, writes benbmims.
Cold chunks of cucumber are the perfect canvas for a sprinkling of crunchy, fried breadcrumbs flavored with ginger, garlic, peanuts and Szechuan pepper.
When temperatures rise into the 90s, becoming an unbearable and inescapable evil, I want to eat only “crunchy water foods,” as a friend calls them. Iceberg lettuce, radishes and celery are vegetables with a distinct, snappy crunch, refreshing you with as much water as their edible parts. The king of the crunchy water foods in summer is the cucumber — particularly the small and sweet Persian variety — and, like Bubba Blue in “Forrest Gump,” I never tire of ways to eat them. Raw, salted, smashed or dressed. Sliced, chopped, chunked or sticks. Tarted up with vinegar, bathed in garlic oil or spiked with white pepper and ginger.
I start by frying fresh breadcrumbs in more oil than seems necessary, but it’s just enough to evenly infiltrate every nook and crumby cranny to fry it to maximum crispness. Once the breadcrumbs are half-fried, I load in the rest of the aromatics: garlic, shallots and peanuts, as well as crushed red chile flakes and Szechuan peppercorns for, respectively, their blatant heat and menthol-like cooling spice.
Fried breadcrumbs, spicy with chiles and crunchy with toasted peanuts, provide the perfect balance to cold, crisp Persian cucumbers. Although the amount of oil in this recipe may seem egregious, it’s necessary to achieve an even, golden-brown “fry” on the breadcrumbs so they all get super-crisp. Don’t worry; you will drain off virtually all the oil afterward. Use these crumbs as a topping for salad, creamy dips or cooked fish fillets.
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