We would all like to be as cool as a cucumber these days, but did you know where the saying comes from? It’s because, being 95% water, cucumber flesh is usually noticeably cooler than the ambient temperature.
Cucumbers are botanical fruit but a vegetable for culinary uses, like tomato. Cucumber slices relieve sunburn on skin and bad breath when sucked on! And those puffy eyes will soon loose the swelling thanks to caffeic and ascorbic acids cucumber contains.
Cucumbers can be grown in water instead of soil. But most importantly, cucumbers are not only good for putting in Greek salad and scaring your cat: here’s a collection of varied and perhaps less common cucumber recipes.
Starting with the classic, albeit a minimalist version of Greek salad. Fresh cucumbers with feta cheese and honey are all the better for skipping tomatoes – with benefits for your digestion.
Cucumbers with feta and honey
RECIPE
This salad makes this (frankly a little boring) vegetable exciting. Fresh cucumbers with cumin tahini dressing, sprinkled with extra sesame seeds are crunchy, juicy and wonderfully refreshing. Try them as a side for beef burger patties.
Cucumbers with cumin tahini
RECIPE
This is cucumber with an Asian vibe: the Chinese smashed cucumber salad with a tasty dressing of soy sauce, sesame oil and rice vinegar. You can make it as spicy as you like with chili flakes or red pepper flakes.
Cucumber is good company for other salad ingredients and herbs, like in Persian cucumber and radish salad, sabzi khordan. ‘Sabzi khordan’ means 'eat your greens' and it's the healthiest plate imaginable, piled high with fresh herbs over the cucumber and radish.
Another mix that gets better with copiously added cucumber is tabbouleh, a classic Levantine salad. It’s a mix of herbs, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers and soaked bulgur wheat, dressed with olive oil and seasoned with Baharat. It’s delicious and healthy, and super easy to prepare.
Cucumbers are lovely cooked! Stir-fried with bacon, hot chillies and Sichuan peppers, served as a warm salad with new potatoes. It's an amazing combination, and not uncommon in Chinese cuisine.
Spicy bacon, cucumber and potato salad
RECIPE
Also, stir-fried on their own, with ginger, garlic and a pinch of chilli, they make an interesting side dish: spicy but also refreshing which is logical as cucumbers are 96% water.
My favourite way with small baby cucumbers: lightly fermented, they are the healthier pickles, crunchy and delicious. Quick lacto-fermented baby cucumbers in lightly salted brine are an excellent probiotic food, good for the gut and wonderfully tasty.
Crunchy fermented cucumbers
RECIPE
But the classic pickles are not to be sniffed at either: here flash pickles are made with cucumber and carrot slices. These quick refrigerator pickles are ready in 3 hours and keep more nutritious elements than ordinary pickles.
Finally, you can’t have takeaway-style Chinese sesame noodles without a pile of cucumber matchsticks on the side. These are egg or rice noodles with homemade sesame paste, spring onions and green beans, ready in 15 minutes.