I am always looking for delicious and non-fattening dishes to keep in the refrigerator when I want a nosh. Since my cucumber vines are producing an abundant amount of cucumbers, I decided to make Julia Child’s cucumber soup and this super easy Japanese cucumber salad which I will share with you now.
Cucumbers Sunomono
Serves 4-6
2 large cucumbers, about 3 cups once they are sliced
1 small red onion, sliced thin
1/3 C rice vinegar
4 tsp. sugar
½ tsp. salt
3 slices fresh ginger, minced about 1 1/2 T
Cucumbers, peeled & halved
Peel and halve the cucumbers the long way.
Use the back of your peeler or a teaspoon to remove the seeds
Scoop out the seeds and slice into thin half moons, but since the seeds are removed they are actually crescent moons.
thinly slice to make half moons, well actually crescent moons since we removed the seeds
This is the only recipe I do that I slice the onions the opposite way so it makes C shaped slices. See the picture at the end of the post. Usually I slice onions the other way because it ruptures less of the onion cells and keeps you from crying as much. I want no crying in cooking, just like there shouldn’t be crying in baseball.
Whisk to dissolve the salt and sugar
Combine the vinegar, salt and sugar and whisk until they are dissolved. I swirl the whisk between my hands to make this go really fast. It is fun too. (I am making a double recipe)
Use a spoon to easily peel the ginger. You can freeze any leftovers. The skin will just slip off frozen ginger, once you slightly defrost it.
Add the ginger, combine the ingredients and pour over the cucumbers and onions.
Let marinate refrigerated at least 1 hour. Enjoy.
Notice the onion slices match the cucumber slices
If you wish to do this in advance, salt the cucumbers with about a tsp of salt and let it sit about 1/2 hour. Rinse and drain well. The salt will pull out some of the excess liquid in the cucumbers and you will not be left with a watered down dressing when it sits overnight. Do the same thing with other cucumber salads and cole slaws.
