Normally I eat cucumber raw in a salad. In Indonesian cuisine cucumber is often eaten blanched or processed in a relish. In this recipe for Indonesian stuffed cucumber by Beb Vuyk the cucumbers need to simmer for 5 minutes in water, than stuffed with minced lamb meat and finished in the oven. Sounds delicious to me. Let’s put it all together.

The recipe is enough for 2-3 people and ready in about 1,5 hours.

Indonesian stuffed cucumber

---

Indonesian stuffed cucumber #189
From Beb Vuyk’s Groot Indonesisch Kookboek, page 180

Ingredients

• 1 large cucumber
• 1/4 kg of meat mixture (see recipe for minced mutton meatballs, 180)
• breadcrumbs
• 1 tablespoon of butter
• 1 tablespoon with shredded santen (coconut cream)
• 1 cup of broth

Herbs and spices

• 1 tablespoon of soy sauce

1. Wash the cucumber.
2. Cut it into four pieces and halve each piece lengthwise.
3. Remove all the seeds and hollow out the pieces even further if necessary.
4. Simmer for 5 to 6 minutes in water and salt. Than drain.
5. Fill each piece with the meat mixture, just enough that the meat sticks out like a little bump.
6. Arrange the cucumber pieces in an ovenproof dish, sprinkle with breadcrumbs and lumps of butter.
7. Mix the broth with sweet soy sauce and the the flakes of santen.
8. Pour the broth into the dish.
9. Bake the dish in the oven for about half an hour untill the meat is done. 

---

I buy minced meat at my Muslim butcher. He sells minced lamb mixed with minced beef. That will work for this dish. Today I use double the amount of ingredients because friends come over for dinner. So I use two cucumbers and I use 500 grams of minced meat.

Beb lets us know that the meat needs to be prepared like in recipe 180. So I add to the meat one egg, 2 teaspoons of ketumbar (coriander), two teaspoons of salt, two teaspoons of pepper and 4 teaspoons of nutmeg. Then I add the onions, the garlic and the potato.

---

I cut my cucumbers lengthwise and I deseed them. Now they can be cooked for 5 minutes in water and salt. I bring the water to the boil first and drop the cucumber pieces in. Do not overcook your cucumber.

I rinse the cucumbers with cold water from the tap after 5 minutes. This will stop the cooking process. They need to go in to the oven for half an hour too. Once the pieces are cooled I add the meat on top and give it a little push. It needs to stick out a little bit like a small bump.

It already looks so nice all those little cucumber boats. I arranged them in a large baking dish.

I dissolve the kecap (sweet soy sauce) and the coconut cream in to the broth. I do not use too much santen because the beef mixture contains coconut too. I use broth made of beef stock, but any broth will do. The broth mixture can be poured into the dish. It smells great already.

The breadcrumbs and the little bit of butter can be added. Beb says in her recipe that the stuffed cucumbers need to go into the oven for half an hour. She doesn’t say how hot the oven needs to be. I heat mine up to 180 degrees celsius and indeed after half an hour the house smells delicious and the meat is done; tender and crisp on the outside.

I make myself sambal badjak too. It works great with Indonesian stuffed cucumber which is not spicy. Also great as a ‘fingerfood’ snack for a party!