Tag: cucumber

Vietnamese Chicken Salad

.Reading time 1 minute.

 

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Fresh, tasty, easy, healthy… 

Serves: 4

This Vietnamese Chicken Salad from Jill Dupleix really does have the essential flavours and kicks and yet takes less than half an hour to prep.

It tastes sensational, what with its simple nuoc cham relish undertone.

It has bite, it presents beautifully and it is crazy healthy.

Do a batch for your weekday lunches and live the good life!

Ingredients

2 chicken breasts
1 carrot, peeled
3 tbsp rice vinegar or lime juice
1 tsp sugar
1 garlic clove, crushed
Sea salt and pepper
3 shallots, finely sliced
Half a cucumber, peeled
Dash of sesame or vegetable oil
1 tbsp Thai fish sauce
3 tbsp mint or coriander leaves
½ mild red chilli, finely sliced
2 tbsp roasted peanuts
1 lime, quartered

Method

  1. Poach the chicken in simmering salted water for 20 minutes, then drain and leave to cool (or use left-over cooked chicken). Cut the carrot into 10cm sections, finely slice lengthwise then cut into matchsticks. Mix the vinegar or lime juice with the sugar, garlic, salt and pepper, toss with the sliced shallots and carrot and set aside for 10 mins.
  2. Roughly shred the chicken. Cut the cucumber in half lengthwise and finely slice. Combine the chicken, cucumber, sesame oil, fish sauce, mint and chilli with the shallots, carrots and their dressing, and toss lightly.
  3. Roughly crush the peanuts and scatter over the top. Serve with lime wedges.

Tzatziki

.Reading time 1 minute.

Serves: 4

A bit boring I know, though a good, home-made tzatziki is pretty cool.

Low fat – if you do it with low, or zero fat yoghurt – and tasty with pretty much anything you can throw at it. Meat, crackers, vegetables.

No guilt.

Ingredients

1 Lebanese cucumber, coarsely grated
Sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper
200gm low-fat (or fat free) Greek-style yoghurt
2 tbsp finely chopped mint
1 clove garlic, crushed

Method

  1. Put the grated cucumber in a fine-meshed sieve over a bowl and sprinkled with a pinch of salt. Set aside for 20 minutes or more to drain off the excess moisture.
  2. Place the salted cucumber, yoghurt, mint and garlic in a bowl and mix to combine. Season and enjoy for the next few days.

Glazed Salmon with a Cucumber Sesame Salad

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Serves: 4

My fourth Bill Granger dish from his book, Everyday Asian.

And with a ‘great’ recipe strike-rate of three out of four and an easiness factor of ten out of ten, Bill Granger is officially no longer the suspect cook I had him for prior to cooking from this book. Going forward, i’ll trust him at his word and cook his recipes without worrying.

Donna Hay on the other hand…

Anyway, this is another really healthy, really tasty weekday number. The salad is really fun and served with some rice and a glass of white, this is a great couch/dinner/TV dish.

Ingredients

4 tbsp mirin
4 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp soft brown sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
4 salmon fillets, skin off

Cucumber Sesame Salad

1 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tsp sesame oil
2 Lebanese cucumbers

Method

Salmon

  1. Combine the mirin, soy sauce, sugar and lemon juice in a bowl. Put the salmon fillets in a shallow dish, pour the mirin mixture over and set aside in the fridge for 15 minutes or more.
  2. Heat a pan on high heat and cook the salmon until nice coloured and pink inside.
  3. Meanwhile, pour the marinade into a small pan and heat over a high-heat for 4 minutes until it has reduced to a glaze. Pour over the cooked salmon and serve with the salad.

Salad

  1. Whisk together the mirin, vinegar and sesame oil.
  2. Use a vegetable peeler or mandoline to peel long ribbons from the cucumber.
  3. Toss the cucumber ribbons with the dressing.

Cucumber and Feta Dip

.Reading time 1 minute.

Serves: 8 snacking guests

There is something special about arriving at someone’s house and being presented with a few homemade dips. It says something nice about your host and it tells you how they feel about you.

I’ve been making my own skinny hommus of late, though I really should get into the habit of making more and more dips; a few dips on hand and a box of chopped carrot sticks in the fridge would be all I needed to bridge the lunch to dinner gap and it would be far more interesting than a boiled egg or an apple!

This wonderful dip is courtesy of my mother. I made it over the weekend with low-fat feta and geez it’s good with brown rice crackers and a glass of wine before dinner.

Get on it! Make your guests feel special!

Ingredients

2 large Lebanese cucumbers, peeled, deseeded and finely diced
Salt and pepper
225gm feta, crumbled
1/8 + cup olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp water
1 small red onion, finely diced
1 tbsp finely chopped parsley
2 tbsp finely chopped mint

  1. Place the diced cucumber in a colander, sprinkle with salt, allow to drain for 30 + minutes, and then rinse and pat dry.
  2. Mash together the feta, olive oil, lemon juice, water and some pepper, and then mix in the cucumber, onion and herbs.