Asian Peppered Cucumber Salad

It's that time again, FoodieFights Battle Cucumber and Black Pepper. This week I've decided to go with something I hardly ever do: a side dish. Not only that, but it's a vegetarian side dish. Hold on to your hats people, as I bring you:

Asian Peppered Cucumber Salad

• 1 medium to large cucumber, skin on
• 1 small clove garlic, grated or very finely minced
• 1 tsp fresh ginger, grated or finely minced
• 2 Tbsp soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp honey
• 2 Tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 2 Tbsp sweet Thai chili sauce
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• Bunches o' fresh cracked black pepper
• 1 scallion, thinly sliced

 Thinly slice the cucumber, or, if you are lucky enough to have a nifty attachment to your mandolin, slice into very fine strips, as shown in the picture below. If using the mandolin, avoid the seedier areas of the cucumber, because you might get mugged. Also, they mostly just smash up instead of slicing nicely. Place the strips or slices in a colander for about a half hour to drain any excess moisture.

In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together all the other ingredients except the scallions. The mixture should be salty (from the soy), sweet (honey, chili sauce), tangy (vinegar) and spicy (chili sauce, pepper), but not too much of each. I didn't measure how much pepper I added, but it was quite a bit; you want enough to have a distinct flavor. Add the scallions and cucumber and let the whole mixture marinate for a few hours or overnight.

Note: there is a pretty generous marinade/cucumber mixture, which leads to an intensely flavored, but somewhat saucy, end product. If you wanted to keep the flavor, just drain off the extra marinade before serving (it could, perhaps, be used as a stir fry sauce base). Otherwise you can cut the marinade in half, or, if you've been making the recipe as you read and have just now gotten to this part, add another cucumber. Either way, it should still taste wonderful.






(Biggie Size Me)
Serving

Since it's a side dish, I though I might contemplate what this cucumber salad should go along with.The dish has a very bright flavor, which would pair nicely with a fatty Asian pork (Chinese spareribs?) or duck (Peking duck?) dish. It also, despite the heat from the chili sauce, has a nice cooling effect which would go nicely to calm down a spicy Szechuan beef. And of course, let's not forget about sushi! Or you could do what I did and just enjoy it by itself. Anyway you slice it (get it? Because you can sliced in slices or... oh nevermind), I think you'll enjoy it.