Hot Kissed Cucumber – 60 second vegetable
“This is a great little side dish served with grilled salmon or teriyaki beef, garnished with a sprinkle of toasted cashews, peanuts, or toasted sesame seeds.”
Tom Brown of Cornerstone restaurant in Hackney, interviewed in The Telegraph
I’m all for simplicity and so I love this suggestion by Tom Brown, a former protégé of Nathan Outlaw, for giving a bit of interest and zing to cucumber in a matter of seconds. That’s why I’ve named it Hot Kissed (from KISS = Keep It Simple Stupid) Cucumber.
The idea of serving cucumber hot, and treating it more like a vegetable than something to contribute a crispy freshness to salads is not new to me. See, for example, both Cucumber Is Hot! and Hot And Cold Passionate Salad. But I have to hand it to Mr Brown – this is super-fast, and super-good.
To be fair, the cucumber is more of a conduit for the garnish, although knobbly Lebbanese cucumbers have a bit more flavour. The garnish is key, and the cucumber should be generously encumbered with it.
It goes well with salmon or thin leaves of beef (see Super-Quick Italian Carpaccio); it is also good as a lunch with crusty bread, goats’ cheese, and maybe some salami.
This is what to do:
Recipe for Hot Kissed Cucumber
Serves – 2
Ingredients
- 1 medium sized cucumber
Sesame oil Garnish – could be toasted and chopped peanuts or cashews; mixed seeds (I use ‘munchy seeds’); sesame seeds; and if serving with fish or seafood, furikake. The important thing is to be generous. Drizzle… optional, could be rich, thick soy sauce, pomegranate molasses, or thick balsamic vinegar
Photos
Instructions
- Get the sesame oil good and hot, and meanwhile slice the cucumber in half, lengthwise.
- Put cut side down on the hot oil (beware spitting). If the cucumber is not completely flat, push down with a fish slice, so the entire cut side gets crispy-golden.
- Serve, topped with your garnish of choice, and, optionally, drizzled too.
Music to cook to
Rita Hayworth sings I’ve Been Kissed Before
