The Viral TikTok Asian Cucumber Salad
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 0 minutes
- 350g/12.3ozs cucumbers (around 2 Lebanese cucumbers)
- 2 stalks green scallions, sliced
- 1 clove garlic, grated or crushed
- 3 tablespoons roasted sesame seeds
- 1 tablespoon fish sauce
- 2 teaspoons soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon chilli oil crisp (the sediment at the bottom of chilli oil)
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar
Step 1 - Set a mandolin on the thinnest setting and mandolin the cucumbers into a quart container, takeaway container or jar. Add hte crushed garlic, sesame seeds, fish sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, chilli oil crisp and sugar. Place the lid on the container and shake for 20 seconds or so. Enjoy!
Personal Note
I like bringing this Asian cucumber salad to picnics because it's a salad that travels well and the dressing while simple adds so much flavour to cucumber. There are no lettuce leaves that might wilt and if you shake this up it doesn't matter because it loves a good shake! The last picnic we had was a couple of weeks ago to celebrate Mr NQN's niece and nephew's birthdays. It was very much an Elliott event. As Mr NQN and I were driving over to Manly Lagoon I messaged his sister Amaya who was organising the whole thing and I asked her if it was raining because it was certainly raining on the Harbour Bridge as we drove across it.
She said that it had been raining but it was no longer raining and that they were sitting under a pine tree. Mr NQN scoffed at this but we continued driving. The alternate plan was to go to Tuulikki's (Mr NQN's mother) house nearby. It was raining when we arrived and Amaya was putting up a tarp on top of the picnic, absolutely determined to have this picnic despite the wind and rain. I swear this family is crazy haha.
At an Elliott picnic there's always hummus and today we were double parked with two family sized tubs of hummus and lots of crackers and this pasta salad that someone makes. I'm not sure who makes it but it makes an appearance at every Elliott family picnic. They boil spiral pasta and then chop up a cucumber and tomato and dress the pasta in the juice from the cucumber and tomato which as you can imagine doesn't add a great deal of flavour. There's no other seasoning added - I tried this once and the lack of dressing or seasoning meant that I never partook of this salad again. Most people end up heaping huge scoops of hummus on top of the pasta salad to give it flavour. I stuck to eating the food that we brought and sheltering from the rain and wind under a blanket and trying to avoid conversation with my right wing brother in law!
So tell me Dear Reader, what do you usually bring to a picnic? Are you the odd one out in your family?