Bashed Cucumber & Radish Salad

 

 

This Bashed Cucumber & Radish Salad was simple to do but very tasty.

 

Ingredients:

 

English cucumber

Radishes

Rice wine vinegar – 2 tsp

Salt 1 tsp

Sugar 2 tsp

Grated ginger 1 tsp

Sesame oil/Garlic oil

Black sesame seeds (I didn't have any so left them out)

 

Method:

 

Put the vinegar, salt, sugar and ginger into a bowl and mix.

 

Peel the cucumber long ways but in alternating stripes.  Halve the cucumber and scoop out the seeds with a spoon.  Chop into largish pieces.

 

Bash the cucumber firmly but not too hard on the cut side– the pieces will split.  Beware of pieces flying out onto the floor – and no, I didn't put them back.

 

Add the bashed cucumber to the bowl of dressing.  Stir and leave it in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.

 

After that there will be more dressing because of the water drawn out of the cucumber.  Add halved radishes and a teaspoon full of sesame oil/ mixed with a little garlic oil.  Mix it all together.

 

I didn't have any black sesame seeds so I just popped a dill frond on top.

Salmon and Bacon Salad with Egg Horseradish Sauce

I only decided to post about this one when I had finished making this salad.  So the presentation is a bit ordinary but the taste was good.

Ingredients:

For the salad:

Smoked salmon – a peppered piece

6-8 rashers of bacon

Radishes

Cherry Tomatoes (heirloom)

Small avocado

Cucumber

Dill

Salt and Pepper

Lemon juice

For the sauce:

1 lightly hard-boiled egg

Gherkin

Horseradish – grated

Salt and Pepper

Bacon fat

Cream

Lemon juice

Method:

Fry off the bacon.  When done cut it up into bite sized pieces.

Cut up the radishes, cherry tomatoes and cucumber and put them onto your salad plate.

Cut your avocado in half and take the stone out with a spoon – I try not to use a knife for this ever since I heard about the very large number of injuries caused!  A spoon works just find – I use a tablespoon measuring spoon.  I then cut the avocado into quarters leaving the skin on.  It exposes less flesh to the air and so you don't need to add as much lemon juice to stop it browning.  And when you eat the salad it is quite easy just to cut the flesh off the skin with your knife and then eat it.

Roughly chop your dill and scatter it on.

I then made the sauce (so that I could use the same knife for cutting the bacon and salmon later).  The sauce was mashed up egg, horseradish sauce, lemon juice, chopped gherkin, salt and pepper and lastly a little splash of cream to loosen it up.

Then onto cutting up the bacon – and then added the bacon fat from the pan into the sauce.

Finally flaking the smoked salmon.  Season the salad to your liking.

Next time I would be confident enough to drizzle the sauce over the salad but I just wasn't sure enough that it would work.  It did.

Bashed Cucumber & Radish Salad

This Bashed Cucumber & Radish Salad was simple to do but very tasty.

Ingredients:

English cucumber

Radishes

Rice wine vinegar – 2 tsp

Salt 1 tsp

Sugar 2 tsp

Grated ginger 1 tsp

Sesame oil/Garlic oil

Black sesame seeds (I didn't have any so left them out)

Method:

Put the vinegar, salt, sugar and ginger into a bowl and mix.

Peel the cucumber long ways but in alternating stripes.  Halve the cucumber and scoop out the seeds with a spoon.  Chop into largish pieces.

Bash the cucumber firmly but not too hard on the cut side– the pieces will split.  Beware of pieces flying out onto the floor – and no, I didn't put them back.

Add the bashed cucumber to the bowl of dressing.  Stir and leave it in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.

After that there will be more dressing because of the water drawn out of the cucumber.  Add halved radishes and a teaspoon full of sesame oil/ mixed with a little garlic oil.  Mix it all together.

I didn't have any black sesame seeds so I just popped a dill frond on top.

Did you like the pretty label on the Margaret River chardonnay...

Japanese Crunchy Salad

This dish came about because I had a lot of Daikon – they are very large radishes!

After a little research, I came up with a Japanese style salad which is apparently often eaten at New Year.  It's a simple crunchy fresh little dish.

Ingredients:

Daikon

Radishes

Carrots – both purple and orange

Ginger – 1 tblsp grated

Vinegar – white in colour – 4 tblsp

Salt – 1 tblsp

Sugar – 1 tblsp

Cut all your vegetables into similar sized matchsticks – consistency not being my strong point this was a bit of a fail.

Rest the vegetables in vinegar and water and then when they are all cut drain them and salt them.

Then add the other ingredients to finish your salad.