Cooking Thursday - Spicy Cucumber Salad

 

Happy Thursday friends, and a very welcome back to my Cooking Thursday.

 

I started a Slow Cooking Thursday many many years ago.  We had quite a lot of participants and it was very much enjoyed by all my blog readers.  Then over the years, I changed it a little to Cooking Thursday so that we would share not only slow cooker recipes, and again it was quite popular.  

 

Unfortunately as I took a step back from blogging consistently, I also stopped sharing recipes, but I'm hoping to get that back on track as well.  I have a lot of recipes to share, I have a lot of recipes that I still need to add to my food blog Full Bellies, Happy Kids.  

 

 

Just need to get the time to actually sit down, edit the photos and write up the recipes.  Hopefully soon!

Anyway, the recipe I am sharing today is one of my husband's newest favorites.  It's so good and so refreshing, and equally easy to throw together.  Especially now with the abundance of veggies in our gardens, it's the perfect way to use up all those cucumbers you may have laying around.

 

The past few months, as I've changed my diet and took on a more Mediterranean kind of cooking, I have found some amazing recipes, and this one is one of the top ones.  The recipe is from Recipe Tin Eats.

Hope you enjoy!

 

 

Spicy Cucumber Salad

Source:  Recipe Tin Eats

Ingredients

• 4 cucumbers (~20cm/8", scale up/down for shorter/longer, Note 1)
• 3/4 tsp cooking/kosher salt
• 1 eschalot/French onion , halved then very thinly sliced (US: shallot) (Note 2)
• 1 cup green onion , green part only finely sliced (1 large, 2 small stems)
• 2 tbsp+ chilli crisp (crispy chilli oil) - Laoganma is my fave (Note 3)
• 2 tsp white seame seeds , toasted (save some for topping)

Dressing:

• 1 1/2 tbsp rice vinegar (sub any clear vinegar)
• 2 tsp soy sauce , all-purpose or light (Note 4)
• 2 tsp sesame oil , toasted (ie brown, not yellow)

Instructions

Smash & salt cucumbers

• Smash - Hit cucumbers with a meat mallet, rolling pin or similar to make the sides burst open. Cut in half lengthwise then into 2.5cm/1" pieces.
• Salt 30 min - Place in a bowl, toss with salt. Set aside for 30 minutes to draw out water (Note 5). Drain/strain and discard salty water, leave cucumbers in same bowl.

Salad

• Whisk Dressing in a bowl.
• CHECK spiciness of your chilli crisp - they vary by brand. If using Laoganma, stick with recipe, else adjust to taste.
• Toss - Put green onion, eschalots, sesame seeds, dressing and chilli crisp in with the cucumbers. Toss until eschalots go floppy - ~30 seconds.
• Serve, sprinkled with extra sesame seeds and dollops of chilli crisp if you dare!

Note: Water continues to come out of cucumbers so after few hours/next day, you'll have a lot more dressing but not as intense flavoured. So eat/serve with spoon to get plenty of dressing in every bite!