Smacked & Smashed Cucumber Salad

Living in Vancouver is a blessing as we are surrounded by a wonderfully diverse and rich food culture, built by different immigrant communities in the city and surrounding neighbourhoods. One particular cuisine that I love and am grateful to have access to is Sichuan cuisine. A style of Chinese cuisine originating in the Sichuan province, it’s generally spicy and a bold mix of garlic and hot chili peppers.

Today’s recipe is a Sichuan style cucumber pickle and based on a recipe by Fuchsia Dunlop. It’s quick and calls for cucumbers, garlic, Chinese chili oil, rice vinegar, and soy sauce. It’s spicy, garlicky, and full of vinegar sass. Best as a side dish with dumplings, noodles or wonton party time.

Serves: 2-3

Cooks in: 30 min

INGREDIENTS

• 1 large cucumber

• 1 tsp kosher salt

• 1 tsp granulated sugar

• 2-3 cloves of garlic, diced or minced

• Couple of pinches of ground Sichuan peppers or black peppercorns

• 3 tbsp rice vinegar

• 1-2 tbsp soy sauce

• 2 glugs of chilli oil. Traditionally this dish uses Chinese Chili Oil but if you don’t have any, I make my own by stuffing dried red chillis like bird’s eye chilis or peperoncini chilis in olive oil or grapeseed oil and letting this sit for a month.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Place the cucumber on a cutting board, smash and spank it with a rolling pan, a bat, your fist or the back of your knife. You want the cucumber to split and break.

2. Chop this mess into bite-size chunks. (If you don’t feel like giving a vegetable a spank, then just roughly chop the cucumber into small chunks.)

3. Throw in a bowl, sprinkle with salt, toss and then set aside for 30 or so minutes. After 30 min, drain the cucumbers in a colander and then place back into the original bowl.

4. In a separate bowl, mix together garlic, vinegar, sugar, soya sauce, chilli oil and pepper.

5. Drizzle this saucy sauce over the cucumbers and eat right away.