cucumber thoughts

The cukes are coming in. I was wondering if anyone had a favorite way to use the abundant harvest.

Here's one way of using cucumbers up.

As for solid food options:

Lazy Cucumber salad:

Peel the cukes
Slice on the slicer part of a box grater
Put slices in a strainer in sink
Generously salt the slices, let sit for an hour or two, squeeze out excess moisture
Put in bowl and drizzle with a few dashes of red wine (or cider) vinegar, more salt (if necessary) and pepper, all to taste
Add a little bit of sugar to taste to round out the flavor and make it sweet and sour

I also recommend very highly Terrasini's spicy cucumber.

Edited to add recipe step and fix typos

I make bread and butter pickles that store in the frig, you can use either cucumbers or pickles to make them. They really easy and the family loves them.
Bread and Butter Pickles

5 onions sliced thin and separated
10 cucumbers sliced very thin
4 cups of sugar
4 cups of cider vinegar
½ cup salt
1 ½ teaspoons celery seed
1 ½ teaspoons turmeric

Mix sugar vinegar salt celery seed and turmeric and pour over onions and cucumbers. Place in jars in frig.
Paulette

Usually in my garden I plant three things pretty religiously, tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers. When I start to get decent cucumbers I always make this salad since I usually have most ingredients on hand. It's a Hungarian salad, called a Peasant Salad (Paraszt Salata) and I've heard it called a Hungarian Flag Salad. It's generally considered a side dish, and I usually make it when we're grilling meat for dinner.

3-4 Large Tomatoes, sliced
2 green peppers, seeded, sliced or chopped
2-3 cucumbers, scored with a fork then sliced.
1 tsp of fresh dill
1 onion, peeled, sliced.

Take all of your vegetables, prep slice, sprinkle with dill and put into your salad bowl. I usually salt my cucumbers a bit but that's more a personal taste thing.

Dressing:
1 clove of garlic, minced
3 Tbs vinegar
1 tsp sugar
6 Tbs olive Oil
salt and pepper to taste

Chop your clove of garlic, place it in a bowl with your wet ingredients, whisk pour over the top of your vegetables, season to taste.

As a variation you can add crumbled feta or goats cheese as well. I usually do this when faced with a surplus of cheese in the fridge.

Just made up some tzaziki (I don't know how authentic it is) with mine: Set 2 cups of plain yogurt in a very fine strainer over a bowl in the fridge overnight (you can line a colander or wider strainer with a coffee filter.) Grate a large peeled and de-seeded cucumber into a bowl (I used my microplane) and pour into a strainer. Salt lightly and allow to stand for 10-15 minutes, until the cucumber doesn't seem liquidy (you can squeeze it out in a dish towel as well.) Add this with 1-2 cloves of grated (microplaned) garlic and a tablespoon or so of snipped fresh dill to the thickened yogurt, mix, season with salt and pepper to taste, serve.

Great on almost everything, from meat to chips to potato salad.

We do a Thai cuc salad pretty close to this.

* 1/2 cup sugar or Splenda
* 1/2 cup rice wine vinegar
* 1/4 cup water
* 1Tablespoon Taste of Thai Garlic Chili Pepper Sauce
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1 English cucumber, unpeeled and sliced thin
* 1/4 cup sliced red onion
* garnish: 3 Tablespoons chopped mint, 3 Tablespoons chopped peanuts


1. In a small saucepan, combine the sugar, vinegar, water, chili pepper sauce and salt. Stir, cook over a medium heat until sugar is dissolved
2. Add cucumbers and onion to appropriately sized dish that will allow all the cucumber mixture to be covered with marinade.
3. Pour vinegar mixture over the vegetables and let marinate for 30 minutes.
4. Just before serving, sprinkle with mint and peanuts.

My Thai cucumber salad is from Thompson -- similar but not the same:

* Use coconut vinegar if you have it
* a little more water makes the whole thing milder, the proportions I use are as much as 2/3 cup to the vinegar quantities listed
* instead of the pepper sauce, try a thinly sliced fresh chile
* instead of onion, try 1/4C of thinly sliced red shallot
* add a tbs of thinly julienned ginger -- this is a key item, it kicks up the 'fresh' quotient
* try chopped cilantro instead of the mint

oh, and I haven't needed to heat the water to get the salt and sugar to dissolve -- much quicker, no cool-down time needed.

I bought a couple of "Indian cucumbers" last week. They have an orange skin and are a little fatter than standard issue green cukes. The one I ate was good, though not discernably different in taste from other farm-fresh cukes. There was, unfortunately, one big difference. While I can keep regular cucumbers in the fridge for weeks, these got crinkly and mushy in just 5 days.

MHayes-
I would suggest adding 2 os 3 Tbsp of EVOO to your tzatsiki, and a little S & P. (And more garlic... but I always call for more garlic, no matter what the recipe.) You can use Greek-style yoghurt or thicken regular by draining it overnight in a strainer lined with a paper towel.

For a southern-style salad, soak sliced cukes, quartered tomatoes, and sliced sweet onions in a mixture of 1/2 cider vinegar
and 1/2 water (or 2/3 to 1/3,depending on how much you like vinegar,) with fresh dillweed and fresh-ground black pepper. It's high season for all of these veggies. Let soak in the fridge for a couple hours and serve. Keeps for three or four days, in fridge.

At one of the American culinary history symposia at The Longone Center at the University of Michigan, one of the caterers served iced cucumber water, which was refreshing and a nice alternative to sweet beverages. It seemed to be just ice water with lots of cucumber slices and a little lime stirred in. I've not made it, but I will, now that your question jogged my memory.

Speaking of cucumber, I picked up a box of cucumber with chile frozen fruit pops at Tony's on Elston that took me by surprise. Subtle cucumber, but a healthy hit of chile and salt.



Tony's Finer Foods
4137 N Elston Ave
Chicago, IL 60618
773-866-0010

Peel and seed cukes and slice thickly on the bias into spears. Serve with kochujang.

Cucumber sandwiches

Benedictine

Cucumber vodka

Oooohhh - I forgot about the wonderful Cucumber Margarita I had at Bien Trucha. I have no idea how it was made but it was good

DaveG wrote:Oooohhh - I forgot about the wonderful Cucumber Margarita I had at Bien Trucha. I have no idea how it was made but it was good

Add pureed cucumber to a regular margarita?

The following was my German grandmother's recipe, however she may have learned it from one of my Polish grandfather's sisters. It's been a Summer staple in my family for as long as I can remember - very refreshing on a hot day.

Cucumbers in Sour Cream
2 medium cucumbers, peeled
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt, divided
1 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons vinegar (cider or white wine)
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon papkrika, or more to taste
1 tablesppon parsley, chopped (optional)

Draw a fork down the sides of the cukes, then slice thin and place in a strainer or colander. Add the onions and 1 teaspoon salt - toss. Let stand 15 minutes, then press/squeeze out as much liquid as you can. In a bowl, mix the sour cream with the remaining salt, the vinegar, and the sugar. Add the cucumbers to the sour cream mixture and chill at least 1 hour. Serve sprinkled with paprika and parsley.

Makes a lovely side salad.

I'm getting some really good ideas! Has anyone tried cucumber in breads or a baked dish?

It doesn't take a lot of cukes to make this, but it is an absolutely delicious use of them...

Juliet and Romeo - Homemade Violet Hour discussion

Alchemist wrote:This is no big deal to share as it just placed third in the 20 best cocktails in the United States in this months GQ. I hope that it doesn't make it less special that I'm sharing it with you, personally.

Juliet & Romeo
2 oz Beefeater
.75 oz Fresh Lime Juice
.75 oz Simple Syrup
3 drops Rose Water
3 drops Angostura
3 slices Cucumber
3 sprigs Mint
Tiny pinch of salt

Glass: Coupe
Garnish: Mint leaf and 1 drop rose water/3 drops of Angostura Bitters.
Ice: None

Muddle cucumber, mint and pinch of salt. Add rest of ingredients. Let sit for 30 seconds (time allowing). Shake. Strain. Garnish with 1 floating mint leaf and 1 drop rose water on top of leaf, and 3 more drops of angostura on the surface of the drink.

You can buy rose water at Sultans Market on North Ave. I would get an eye dropper at the container store as well as a couple of extra drops will make this drink way to much like the jewerly box of a very old southern belle.

The pinch of salt is really, really small. It should be muddled with the cuke to bring out it's freshness.

Cheerrs,
Toby

I make 'Tzatziki on the 2's' any time I have a couple cucumbers laying around. There are a million permutations to this recipe, but these proportions generally work well for me. I like lots of bits of cucumber and mint in mine.

2 medium cucumbers, well scrubbed, seeded and shredded/grated (I leave the peels on, feel free to remove them)
2t of salt

2 cups Greek yogurt (or 4 cups regular yogurt strained overnight)
2T extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic crushed or minced (or as much as you like)
2T chopped fresh mint (you can sub fresh dill if you prefer)
2T lemon juice
salt & pepper to taste

1) Sprinkle the 2t of salt over the shredded cucumber and mix well.
2) Leave to drain in a colander over a bowl for at least 30 minutes to a couple hours.
3) While the cucumber is salting, mix the oil with the yogurt, then add in the garlic, mint, and lemon juice. Toss in the 'fridge until the cucumber is ready.

When the cucumber has sit for a while:

4) Rinse the cucumber and squeeze dry by the handful in a towel.
5) Stir the shredded cucumber into the yogurt mix and blend well.
6) Add salt & pepper to taste.
7) Allow to sit overnight in the 'fridge for the flavors to blend.

Well, I know what I'm doing with the two cukes I have left!

I just found a recipe for a cold cucumber soup. Maybe I'll try that over the holiday weekend. I'll let you all know how it turns out.

skin em..cut em up in large chunks and toss with some feta and tomatos with a touch of good Greek olive oil, salt, pepper and oregano...spoon some on top of a nice thick slice of crusty Greek bread
sometimes simple is best

Tonight's cucumber dish (I'm inundated with the darn things) was inspired by a salad I saw in the Vegetarian Epicure Book 2

Prepare 1/2 C couscous according to package directions. Fluff and cool

Peel, halve, seed and slice a cucumber.
Dice some onion and add to the cukes
Blend about 1/2 C champagne vinegar, two big pinches sugar (maybe 1 tsp), small pinch paprika (maybe 1/2 tsp), and about 1/4 tsp dill
Taste and adjust seasoning. You want this to have a little bite from the paprika but not to be overwhelmed by the heat. A mix of sweet and hot paprikas would work well but I only had hot.

Pour dressing over cucumber and onion and toss well. Add to cooled couscous and toss lightly. Chill and serve.

Side note: I grow burpless cukes and never salt them.

paulette wrote:I make bread and butter pickles that store in the frig, you can use either cucumbers or pickles to make them. They really easy and the family loves them.
Bread and Butter Pickles

5 onions sliced thin and separated
10 cucumbers sliced very thin
4 cups of sugar
4 cups of cider vinegar
½ cup salt
1 ½ teaspoons celery seed
1 ½ teaspoons turmeric

Mix sugar vinegar salt celery seed and turmeric and pour over onions and cucumbers. Place in jars in frig.
Paulette

Is this something that requires boiling water, sterilized jars, experience with canning vegetables? Because I have none of the above, and am afraid to try it if that's what's really involved. Or is this as simple as you make it sound?

Its as simple as it sounds. No canning involved, just wash the jars, mix in a bowl fill jars and put in frig.
Paulette