Chinese Cucumber Salad Recipe

In case anyone has missed me whining about it, school is starting soon in Utah (tomorrow!) and for a week now I've been back at work. That may be the reason I've been trying some pretty easy recipes, although actually, this recipe came from a cookbook I've had more than ten years, and I've been meaning to try it for a long time. The book is called Too Many Tomatoes, Squash, Beans, and Other Good Things - A Cookbook for When Your Garden Explodes. It's a book with some unusual and interesting ideas for using up garden veggies.

I really liked the way this turned out, and surprisingly enough, with the exception of replacing most of the sugar with Splenda, I actually followed the recipe pretty closely. The recipe starts with soaking the peeled and seeded cucumbers for 30 minutes in salted ice water, a step I might skip if I was in a hurry, but it did produce nice crisp cucumbers. The salad doesn't look like much more than a bowl of cucumbers, but the flavor was really interesting, and quite tasty. I'm sure this will become a permanent part of the summer cucumber salad rotation around here.

Here are the easy steps for making the salad. These photos show half the amount of the recipe, but this kept fairly well in the refrigerator overnight, and next time I'd make the full recipe. (Complete recipe at the end.)

Peel cucumbers, cut in half lengthwise and scoop out seeds with a spoon.

Soak cucumbers in salted ice water 30 minutes.

Let drain at least 15 minutes.

Pour dressing over and marinate 30 minutes.

Chinese Cucumber Salad
(Makes about 4 servings, recipe from Too Many Tomatoes, Squash, Beans, and Other Good Things - A Cookbook for When Your Garden Explodes

Ingredients:
4 medium sized cucumbers

Dressing Ingredients:
4 T red wine vinegar
4 T soy sauce
2 T Splenda plus 4 tsp. sugar
(or use 4 T sugar or 3 T Splenda)
4 tsp. sesame oil
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. Tabasco (I used about 6 shakes green Tabasco.)

Instructions:
Peel cucumbers, leaving some of the peel on in stripes if they are fresh garden cucumbers. Cut each cucumber in half lengthwise, then use a spoon to scrape out the seeds.

Cut cucumbers in 1/4 inch thick slices. Soak 30 minutes in salted ice water. (I used about 2 T sea salt in the water.) Let drain very well.

Mix dressing ingredients and pour over cucumbers. Let marinate 30 minutes, then serve.

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South Beach Suggestions:
I think Splenda tastes best combined with a tiny bit of real sugar, and the amount of sugar I used is minimal, since you don't eat much of the dressing. For phase one, this would go well with Forbidden City Chicken or Grilled Chicken Sanpete Kabobs. For phase two or three, add Lake Powell Spicy Rice.