Salad and jade

Sarita's been sending me gentle but meaningful hints along the lines of 'BLOG' and 'DO IT NOW' so I'll be obliging.

I'll start off by saying I can do this now.

This is how it works.

I may not be able to pull off the splits quite like that, but I'm getting close. I have to say, it's a remarkably fun hold and much easier than I thought it would be.

After that shameless boasting, I would like to share a recipe. It's for a Thai cucumber salad. It's been a long time since I've been properly impressed by salad, but this one was pretty amazing. Possibly because it's Asian-flavoured. Anyway, it's good for vegetable intake and can be made in any season, although of course cucumber is a little harder to find/more expensive.



Adapted very slightly from Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion. Note that most of these amounts can be altered according to taste.

• 2 shallots, very finely sliced (we didn't have any shallots, so I just used red onion, but I'm sure normal brown onion works just as well)
• vegetable oil
• 1 long cucumber (it says to peel and seed it, but I don't bother)
• 1/2 T brown sugar (or raw sugar, or palm sugar, but if you're using those you may want to use slightly less 'cause they're strong)
• 1 T rice vinegar or white wine vinegar
• 1/2 to 1 fresh chilli, seeded and finely chopped
• 25 g peanuts, roasted and chopped (they can be roasted easily in a dry frying pan on low heat. Just don't leave them unattended cos they burn very easily).
• 1 T freshly chopped corriander leaves.
• fish sauce

Sauté shallots/onions gently and slowly in oil until brown but not burnt. Drain on kitchen paper. Cut cucumber into 1 cm cubes. Dissolve sugar in vinegar (it helps if you heat the vinegar a little first). Toss vinegar mixture through the cucumber, then add all other ingredients, seasoning to taste with fish sauce.

And that's it. It's super easy, quite healthy and rather tasty. It might also be interesting to note just how many times I typed 'cumcumber' accidentally while writing that out. Hint: a great many times.

I haven't tried this next part, but I'm sure the salad would work very well tossed through some glass noodles, possibly with fish or thin strips of lightly fried beef.