Pork Scaloppine with Sauteed Cucumbers + Spring Onions

Every week, Caroline Wright creates simple, civilized recipes for Food52 that feed four -- for under $20, in under 20 minutes.

Today: Discover the secret of buttery cooked cucumbers, and then pair them with crispy pork cutlets.

Cooked cucumbers are a revelation, a secret that no one tells you. They remain crisp, like a perfectly blanched vegetable of a much sturdier stock, and they taste fresh and sweet even as they begin to caramelize. It is important to choose thin-skinned cucumbers for their texture, though a hothouse cucumber hollowed of its seeds would work as a suitable stand-in. Together with crisp pork cutlets pounded from pieces of a tenderloin, these buttery, cooked cucumbers make an intriguing meal of modest ingredients.

Pork Scaloppine with Sauteed Cucumbers + Spring Onions

Serves 4

3 tablespoons salted butter, divided
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 spring onions, chopped (whites only) 
8 Persian cucumbers (about 1 pound), halved lengthwise and cut into 2-inch pieces
4 sprigs thyme plus 2 teaspoons leaves
1 pork tenderloin, trimmed of silverskin, cut into ½-inch slices 
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup flour
1 tablespoon lemon juice, plus lemon wedges for serving 

See the full recipe (and save and print it) here.

As a freelance food writer and cook, I first wrote this style of recipe as a column on my blog, The Wright Recipes, as an excuse to cook good food for my friends in a quick and simple way. 

Twenty-Dollar, Twenty-Minute™ Meals grew into a cookbook that’s being published by Workman in May 2013. The recipes found here are original, made especially for Food52 to once again celebrate simple food with friends.

Photos by Caroline Wright