It has all the contrasts you can dream about in a dish. Contrasting sweet, salty, tangy and spicy flavors. There’s plenty of textural contrast too with the combination of juicy cucumber and crunchy peanuts.
Cook’s notes
This recipe, executed by my daughter Alex, contains just a hint of heat. Of course, if you go to Thailand, the heat level of salad dressings is many times higher. The locals are used to that. But we are not so adjustments were in order.
Homemade sweet chili sauce was used in this salad. It’s a boiled sauce that is reduced until it acquires the consistency of a syrup. The thickish dressing ensures that the salad does not turn watery too fast.
For the best Thai cucumber salad, toss the sliced cucumber in salt and press out excess water.
Make sure that the sweet chili sauce has cooled before stirring in the lime juice.
Thai-style cucumber salad
Ingredients
- 1 medium cucumber peeling is optional
- 1 teaspoon rock salt
- 1 medium onion
- 3 tablespoons sweet chili sauce store bought or homemade
- 1 tablespoon lime juice
- roasted peanuts as much as you like
- 2 sprigs cilantro (leaves only) torn by hand
Instructions
- Split the cucumber into halves vertically, scoop out the seeds with a spoon and discard. Thinly slice the cucumber halves.
- Place the sliced cucumber in a bowl and sprinkle with salt. Toss well. Cover the bowl and chill in the fridge for 15 minutes. The salt will draw out water from the cucumber to prevent your salad from turning soupy. So, please don’t skip this step.
- Peel, halve and thinly slice the onion.
- Make the dressing by whisking together the sweet chili sauce and lime juice.
- Roughly chop the roasted peanuts.
- Take the cucumber out of the fridge and transfer to a colander. With your hands, squeeze out as much of the water as you can without tearing the cucumber slices.
- Transfer the squeezed cucumber to a bowl and toss with the onion slices.
- Drizzle in two to three tablespoons of the dressing and toss lightly but thoroughly. Taste and, if you feel that mixture needs more flavor, add the rest of the dressing.
- Transfer the salad into bowls. Sprinkle with peanuts and cilantro.
- Serve immediately.
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