In search of the perfect cucumber salad

"A plain cucumber salad with no dressing at all other than a few drops each of olive oil and tarragon vinegar is equally delicious." Elizabeth David

Those words were a footnote to an Elizabeth David recipe for Cucumber and chive salad from her book Summer Food. This is not it, in the picture, but it's a very similar recipe, but the link is to the recipe on Elizabeth Peddey's website. I am using this very simple cucumber salad, as my starting point, because I have now spent an hour or two trawling the net and my cookbooks looking for a simple cucumber salad that I can make every now and then - just for David and I - because I have a tendency to buy cucumbers, almost forget about them and end up throwing them away because they go all mushy and horrible in a very short space of time. So I thought that if I could find something to alternate occasionally with my go-to green salad I might solve the problem. Really I should probably just remember to add a few pieces of cucumber to the green salad. Nevertheless people, I tried.

Nigel even goes one step further than Elizabeth by saying of cucumber that:

"the best use I have come across is as a sandwich filling, held between two thick slices of the freshest white bread."

So English. Maybe I should add cucumbers to my limited list of fillings/spreads for my lunchtime white baps.

Mind you, almost in the same breath he then goes on to describe what he says you can use as a dressing for smoked fish or as that sandwich filling. It's basically diced cucumber, salted and drained and then mixed with mayonnaise, mustard, pepper and salt, sliced spring onions, some chopped mint and capers. And of course I have come across many variations of this too.

As another one of his 'not a recipe' recipes -

"Grated cucumber, black pepper, chopped mint, a few capers and some roughly crumbled feta cheese. Fold gently through thick sheep's or goat's yoghurt and pile on to crispbreads."

Similar to this - also from Nigel - Cucumber mint and cornichon páte

But you can see I'm straying already. Now the above would make a wonderful starter - a kind of dip, similar to raitas and tzatziki - all of which I studiously avoided in my earlier wanderings, but because I was in one of Nigel's cookbooks and I spotted the simple feta thing, I went looking for pictures and found the above.

But back to my quest for a perfect cucumber salad. I thought I was looking for a simple side dish but of course I strayed into more complicated territory although I did try to resist now and then. But not always - so here are a two of the more tempting 'proper' salads, both of them a variation on fattoush - the Lebanese bread based salad - almost a meal in themselves - that I found along the way. Zucchini and cucumber fattoush with harissa and lemon - Phoebe Wood/delicious. and Smashed cucumber and dukkah crumbed fattoush salad - Alice Zaslavsky/delicious.

Before I go on I should perhaps say a few words about preparing your cucumbers, whether they be Lebanese or what we call Continental here - the long ones. To salt or not to salt? Some say yes, some say no. I think it probably depends on whether you are eating straight away or later. If later I think salting is the way to go or your dish might be soggy not crunchy.

Do you peel, grate, slice across, or lengthways, thin or thick, diced small, chunks or chip shaped, and do you keep the seeds? Well it's probably up to you but in the recipes that follow you will see that the authors always have a suggestion which can sometimes be varied, sometimes not.

I'll begin with the super trendy smashed or smacked version in which you bash your cucumber a bit, so that it will absorb the dressing. Originally this was a Chinese idea and lots of my examples are at least Asian but they don't have to be. Felicity Cloake has a go at the Perfect smacked cucumber and so here you will pick up some words of advice on this and that with the whole process. Then there's Smashed cucumber Caesar - Jamie Cookclub; Smacked cucumber salad - Tom Hunt; Smacked cucumber salad with sumac from Ottolenghi in his Plenty cookbook, with the recipe on the Instagram site Curry and Chips and his Smacked cucumber salad with sumac onions and radishes

I'm not quite sure how I class the next set - in between a side dish and an actual appetiser perhaps: Cucumber, dates and pistachio - Shuki Rosinbaum and Lousa Allan/The Guardian; Burrata with herb oil and cucumber - Lisa Featherby/Gourmet Traveller and Cucumber salad with walnuts and Parmesan - Simmering Starfruit

Then there are two rather fancy, definitely not side dishes, versions - Shaved cucumber and pomegranate salad - actually not so difficult, from Greg and Lucy Malouf/Gourmet Traveller and Cucumber salad cylinders with with infused basil oil - Saladmaster. They shouldn't really be included in a search for perfect cucumber salad to go with our everyday dinners, but they were both so beautiful.

Which leaves me with the contenders, for a new way to make a cucumber salad - Green goddess cucumbers - Nick DiGiovanni/delicious.; Chilli-dressed salmon with Thai cucumber salad - delicious.; Cucumber salad with whipped feta - Jamie Oliver - you could leave out the whipped feta; Not quite pickled cucumbers with green goddess dressing - Tom Walton/delicious. and Japanese-inspired cucumber salad - Love and Lemons

I think the winner might be Jamie's Simple cucumber salad - it is indeed pretty simple, and a touch better than I might have devised myself, although maybe not. Which just demonstrates, that fundamentally I'm just lazy and could easily concoct a side salad of cucumbers. Maybe that slightly fancy one with walnuts and Parmesan might also be a go-to. It doesn't have to be walnuts after all which I know David doesn't like.

Or maybe I should just look up that Cucumber Guy on TikTok who apparently comes up with an almost daily idea of what to do with them and is actually fairly well regarded by the cognoscenti.

I do like cucumbers. I even grew some one year, and actually managed to harvest a few. I might try again. Once they appeared as tiny cucumbers they grew to a large size very rapidly, which was very satisfying.

Maybe I should start tonight. I'm planning on concocting some small meat pies with some leftover steak. A cucumber salad might go well with that. I haven't any dill - but I do have fennel - leaves - in the garden.

YEARS GONE BY

April 16

2025 - Nothing

2024 - Almost 100

2023 - Knafeh

2022 - Welsh rabbit - or is it rarebit - or English or Scottish?

2021- Missing

2020 - Missing

2019 - It's all been done before

2018 - Quote(s) of the day - part two. Dustbin day

2017 - The big Easter egg hunt