I'm in Thailand now, but leading up to my trip, I've a)been watching what I eat and b) been feeling very inspired by anything to do with Asia. Here's a recipe that I cheffed up out of the Food & Wine Cookbook. It made a lot of cucumbers and I portioned them out for weekday snacks. It's actually Joann Chang's recipe, so I knew it had to be good!
Asian Cucumber Salad
- 2 cucumbers, sliced
- 1/4 cup toasted sesame oil
- 1/4 cup rice vinegar
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
- 4 scallions
 |
| See food porn - 2011 F&W cookbook..... yum. |
Mix the sesame oil and rice vinegar together in a bowl. Whisk well. Taste test. This will be a matter of preference. I preferred mine to have a bit of a tangy, vinegar-y flavor, so I added a bit more rice vinegar. If you like it sweet, you could also mix in a bit of sugar to balance out the tangy vinegar. Toss the dressing in the bowl with the cucumbers.
In a food processor, mix salt, sesame seeds and red pepper. Process until fine. I have to admit, next time I would skip this step. My seeds were tiny and it didn't really process like it should have. Nor did I think it really affected it at all in the end.
Add mixture to cucumbers. Add in a bit at a time, so you don't overwhelm the cucumbers. I think I only ended up using half of mine or so.
Top with scallions and serve! I portioned mine out into fours for a quick roughly 100 calorie snack at work!
