Am…musings

One of the simplest recipes I have is my favorite. It’s my grandma’s recipe for cucumber salad. I’m making it tonight because we’re having Easter dinner this Saturday due to some scheduling conflicts next weekend. I’ve made cucumbers every Easter since my grandma passed away and my aunt was unceremoniously stripped of the duty a few years later when the cucumbers were so salty they were inedible.

I call the recipe simple not necessarily because it’s uncomplicated, but because it requires no real measuring and only two ingredients, minus the most basic spices – salt and pepper.

Although none are difficult, there are a few steps:
First, peel and slice cucumbers (I prefer the seedless English variety). I slice them in the food processor, which makes amazingly quick and pretty work of it … much to my delight (I guess it’s the simple pleasures in life).

Then, according to grandma, grab a handful of cucumbers, throw each handful in a bowl and salt them before adding the next handful. And … here’s where the psychoanalysis comes in. As a 9-year-old kid, I made dinner for the first time. It was potato soup, and after a few bites my dad jokingly likened it to wallpaper paste. It wasn’t necessarily a lie, but probably not the best thing to say to a girl who was proud of her first attempt at real cooking. I was crushed and poured over the recipe to figure out where I’d gone wrong. Ever since … while not necessarily anal about most things … I’ve been a meticulous cook. So … I layer the cucumbers carefully in the bowl, salting between layers to make sure they are evenly salted and perfect.

You can certainly try either way.

After they’re all in the bowl, stick them in the fridge, where they will “sweat” a good deal of their liquid.

After two to three hours, take handfuls out of the bowl and squeeze them over the sink to get as much liquid out as possible.

Throw them in a bowl (no anal-ness required for this step) and cover them with vinegar – plain old white vinegar, which I buy by the gallon because I also like to clean with it.

Top with pepper, stir and refrigerate. I usually do this a day or two in advance, which grandma’s recipe doesn’t call for, but I think it creates better flavors. And my dad … who complained about my first cooking foray … doesn’t like cucumbers so he won’t be enjoying this masterpiece.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 10:41 pm and is filed under family, food, recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.