Asian Style Cucumber Salad

by Linda on February 14, 2011

This is another of my favourite summer salads.  Cucumbers are practically in glut this time of year, but I can’t get inspired to do any preserving.  One year I made dozens of jars of bread-and-butter cucumbers, but by the time cucumber season finished I was quite happy to leave them un-opened.  By the time I started to feel like cucumber again, the season had come round again.  They sat very decoratively on a shelf for several years.

Now I try very hard to discipline myself to plant only one cucumber vine each fruiting planting break throughout spring and summer.  That way I have continuity of supply all season, and I still end up giving lots away.

The Recipe

This recipe uses 2 continental cucumbers. They need to be sliced lengthways very fine.  I use the broad blade on my grater, and to get the green edges, I grate the cucumber lengthways, and discard the first and last slices, and, if the middle is too seedy, a couple of middle slices too.

  • Put the sliced cucumbers in a colander, sprinkle with a dessertspoon of salt, and leave to drain for about half an hour.
  • Toast 2 dessertspoons of sesame seeds in a heavy pan, shaking to get an even toast.
  • Finely slice half a red onion.
  • Make a dressing by blending together
    • 1 or 2 chilis (depending on how hot they are)
    • 2 cloves of garlic
    • a thumb sized knob of fresh ginger
    • 4 or 5 leaves of culantro or sprigs of coriander
    • several drops of sesame oil
    • 4 dessertspoons of lime cordial
    • 1 dessertspoon of fish sauce
  • Rinse the cucumber in fresh water, drain well, pat dry, and toss with the sliced onion, toasted sesame seeds, and dressing.

This salad holds relatively well, so it’s a good one to take to a barbeque or make ahead of time.  Goes really well with barbequed fish.

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Asian Style Bean and Capsicum Salad

by Linda on February 8, 2011


After floods followed by heat wave, my garden has practically no leafy greens in it.  The parsley and celery keeled over in the wet – they hate waterlogged roots and although my drainage is pretty good, it wasn’t up to 150mm of rain in a day.  The lettuces and rocket keeled over in the heat wave, not up to several days in a row over 40º.

But that’s ok.  Summer salads need more crunch and cool than leaf-based salads anyway. This is one of my favourite summer salads, great with anything on a barbeque.

The Recipe:

I like snake beans best for this salad, but french beans work too.  Blanch beans by cooking for just a couple of minutes in boiling water, then cooling straight away in cold water, so they are still crunchy.

Beans are the stars and it is best not to over-elaborate: some diced cucumber and sliced capsicum and red onion go well,  but leave out tomatoes or leafy greens.

Toss through the dressing and it’s done.

Dressing:

1 dessertspoon olive oil
1 dessertspoon  lime cordial
1 dessertspoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon fish sauce
1 teaspoon soy sauce
few drops sesame oil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh herbs - mint, vietnamese mint and culantro or coriander are my first choices, but you could also include lemon, lime or Thai basil.

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Cucumber Raita

by Linda on April 24, 2010

This is not so much a recipe as a reminder.  With cucumbers and mint both fully in season (going off in my garden) we have been eating a cucumber raita (or tzatziki – same recipe, just a short journey across the Middle East) as a side dish with practically every meal.

I have developed such a addiction for it that I have been taking a tub with some flat bread and left over vegetables for lunch every day I am out. It’s a really tasty, really easy, really cheap, and really healthy dish, and as an added bonus, it has practically no calories.

I use the food processor to blend a clove of garlic into a good dollop of plain, low-fat yoghurt,  then add a big bunch of mint leaves and blend just enough to chop them in (rather than turn it into green yoghurt).  Occasionally I might add a bit of coriander and/or cumin to vary it.

Finely dice a cucumber.  I’m growing a mixture of Richmond River White and Continental  cucumbers.  The Richmond River Whites need peeling, but I leave the peel on the Continentals.  I leave the seeds in both kinds but you may want to de-seed older cucumbers. Salt to taste and you have it.

(It’s even better, and cheaper, if you make your own yoghurt.  Christine at Slow Living Essentials has the recipe. A supermarket cool bag or a lunch cool bag make a good insulated container,)

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