Cucumber Salad with Smashed Garlic and Ginger

Yesterday was one of those "Can we stop the planet and let me off?" kind of days. Luckily, a few things came together over the course of the evening and the result is that I am having a much better day today. All I've really wanted to do today was be in the kitchen, so I used that as a reward for getting other things that I should get done accomplished. I decided that I wanted something more than a one-dish kind of meal, so tonight's menu consists of Cucumber Salad with Smashed Garlic and Ginger and Sweet Potato Cakes. Both recipes are from Plenty. I am going to write up a separate post for each of them, and I'm going to start with the lovely, simple salad... As usual, all ingredients are as written in the book, while the instructions incorporate my alterations and substitutions.

Cucumber Salad with Smashed Garlic and Ginger
(p. 166,  Plenty)

Serves 4-6 as a condiment or a side dish
Note: the salad's dressing needs to sit for an hour.

Dressing
3 tbsp rice wine vinegar
2 tsp sugar
2 tbsp sunflower oil
2 tsp toasted sesame oil

1 small red onion, very thinly sliced
1 1/2 inches fresh ginger, peeled and sliced
1 tsp Maldon sea salt
2 large cloves of garlic, peeled
4 small (or 8 mini) cucumbers (1 1/4 lbs), peeled
1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
3 tbsp chopped cilantro

Assemble ingredients:

Off the bat I have a few substitutions: I don't have rice wine vinegar, so I opted to substitute apple cider vinegar, thinking that the fruity-ness of the cider vinegar would compliment the cucumbers. Also, rice wine vinegar always seems sweet to me and I thought the cider vinegar would be the closest approximation of that sweetness. I also substituted the Maldon sea salt for my finely ground fleur de sel, simply because I don't have any Maldon (I am working on it. I miss having its large flake-y goodness in the kitchen). I omitted the sesame seeds and cilantro garnishes, and I subbed out the sunflower oil for a plain olive oil because I had it on hand. Finally, I traded in tiny cucumbers for the much more affordable large one.

These are equivalent weights. 

To make the dressing, whisk all of the dressing ingredients together in a medium mixing bowl (I missed this part, made it in a smaller bowl and had to trade up later. Not such a big deal). I used my mandolin to slice the onion (and the cucumber later) because my hands were being problematic today, which always makes handling knives challenging.

Ta-da!

Add the sliced red onion to the dressing, mix to combine and leave aside to marinate for about an hour. This really helped mellow the bite of the onion. And adding the sesame oil made the kitchen smell incredible. The dressing was smelling good... and then I added the sesame oil and the whole profile changed. In a good way. ^_^

Place the ginger and salt in a mortar and pound well with a pestle. Alternatively, you could do this in a in a tiny food processor, I suppose... I actually mashed mine with the end of my marble rolling pin against a cutting board as I have yet to acquire a mortar and pestle. It worked out fairly well as an improvised method. ^_^ Add the garlic and continue pounding until the garlic is also well crushed and broken up into pieces, although stop pounding before the whole thing becomes a paste. Use a spatula to scrape the contents of the mortar into the bowl with the onion and dressing.

Stir together.

Cut the cucumber(s) lengthwise in half, then cut each half on an angle into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Again, I used my mandoline here to save myself some peril (I realize I may be in the minority who consider a mandoline less perilous than a knife... ). Add the cucumbers to the bowl, followed by the sesame seeds and cilantro, if using. Stir well and leave to sit for 10 minutes. I leave the peel on my cucumber mostly for aesthetic reasons. The ribbons of dark green look so pretty!

Yotam says that before serving the salad should be stirred and some of the liquid that has pooled in the bottom of the bowl should be tipped out. Taste it again to check for seasoning and adjust if necessary. Then enjoy. I didn't tip any out of mine, but did stir and check the seasonings.

This tastes very clean and refreshing. The cucumber is very mellow in contrast to the zip of fresh ginger, and I liked the way that letting the red onion stand in the dressing for a while made it mellow... normally I am not a fan of raw onion. The salad was a lovely compliment to the Sweet Potato Cakes that I made, which makes sense, as Yotam indicates they are good served together. Which leads me to the next post...