On Smacked Cucumbers
A technique shift
Salads made with vegetables—not lettuce—are my current obsession. In particular, the cucumber salad reigns supreme. It may have something to do with the two English cucumbers I planted in the garden this year. They’re yielding at least two large cukes a day, so we’re eating cucumber salads in equal proportion.
There are a million ways to make a delicious cucumber salad. Make it creamy with mayo, sour cream, or yogurt. Make it tangy with lemon juice or vinegar. Toss cucumbers with chili crisp or salsa macha. But whatever you do, stop slicing your cucumbers.
Actually, do what you want, but I’m excited to share a very simple technique that has honestly changed my cucumber salads (and salads containing cucumbers) for the better. Instead of slicing them, crush them. Hear me out.
Cucumbers are delightful no matter what you do with them. They’re crunchy and juicy and have a delightfully mild flavor that goes with everything. However, every single time I add sliced cucumbers to my green salads they stick to the bottom of the salad bowl. They can also be tricky to spear with a fork—they want to stick to the plate, a real bummer when you’re trying to maneuver them into your mouth.
A Chinese salad taught me a better way.
Several years ago, the Chinese smacked cucumber salad made the rounds on American blogs and cooking websites. It’s a truly fantastic salad—so good we added a recipe to Joy in 2019 (see page 126). But I’d limited myself to smacking cucumbers only when making that particular salad.
John had the brilliant idea to smack cucumbers all the time, and now I can’t stop doing it. Not only is it easier and faster than slicing, it eliminates the problem of cucumbers sticking to the salad bowl or evading your fork. The cucumber chunks are nice and craggy, so any seasonings you add tend to stick better, and I find the texture of the irregular pieces more appealing.
To smash cucumbers, you can go in a couple of directions. If you have a heavy cleaver, a couple well-positioned whacks will obliterate your cucumber in the best way. But a regular chef’s knife works, too.
My current method is to first cut the cucumber into 2-inch pieces. Then I lay the side of my chef’s knife on top of each piece and press down firmly on the broad side of the blade with the heel of my hand. The cucumber cracks in a satisfying way, and I’m on to the next piece. After cracking all of the pieces, I run the knife through them a couple times to break up particularly large chunks. That’s it. The cucumber is ready for your seasonings.
My favorite cucumber salad is still the one I wrote about awhile back—generous on the sesame oil—but I’ll also add these cracked cucumbers to leafy green salads, where they mingle much more naturally with the ruffled lettuce than slices do.
A bonus to this cracking technique is that the cucumbers exude less water (or, at least, they exude it slower). Because cracking a cucumber exposes less surface area than slicing, less of the cucumber comes in contact with the salt in your dressing. The salt therefore doesn’t draw as much water out of the cucumber, keeping your salads crisp and dressings undiluted.
Maybe this isn’t a problem you’d ever considered, but I think that once you try smashing all your cucumbers you won’t go back to slicing, if for no other reason than it’s really fun.
Other Things We Ate This Week
Fattoush! We had some stale pita bread so we turned it into a salad with romaine, cucumber, tomato, feta, pickled onions, and grilled chicken.
I’ve been enjoying salted brown sugar peach jam (a Marisa McClellan recipe) on toasted sourdough bread all week long. I need to remember to save a few jars for winter :)
We happened to drive by a farmstand this week and bought some baby artichokes. You almost never see them so small (about the size of walnuts in the shell), so we snagged a couple bags and made Joy’s Garlic Braised Artichokes (page 206).
Canning tuna is a bit of an ordeal but it’s so very Pacific Northwest (and delightful to have home-canned tuna in the pantry). Joy has instructions for that, too, starting on page 904
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