Peter Kuruvita

Bhutanese cucumber salad

Preparation info

  • Difficulty

    Easy

  • Serves

    4

    as a side dish

Appears in

Lands of the Curry Leaf

Lands of the Curry Leaf

By Peter Kuruvita

Published 2018

  • About

When I look at this recipe I see a Bhutanese Greek salad. It is light and tasty, yet has that typical Bhutanese heat — but you can omit the bird’s eye chilli if you prefer, and just use the two long red chillies. This salad also offers a degree of stress relief, in the very satisfying act of smashing the cucumber.

Preparation 15 minutes + 15 minutes resting

Ingredients

  • 1 telegraph (long) cucumber
  • 2 vine-ripened tomatoes, diced
  • ½ red onion, thinly sliced
  • 2 long red chillies, sliced, with the seeds
  • 1 small red bird’s eye chilli, seeded and finely chopped
  • a handful of fresh coriander (cilantro), finely chopped
  • 2 spring onions (scallions), finely chopped
  • 100 g (3½ oz) Danish feta cheese
  • 1 teaspoon ground sichuan pepper

Method

Cover the cucumber with plastic wrap and gently smash it up a bit using a rolling pin. Chop into 2 cm (¾ inch) cubes and place in a serving bowl.

Add the tomato, onion, chillies, coriander and spring onion. Crumble the feta into the salad, sprinkle with the sichuan pepper, season with salt and mix together well.

Before serving, leave to sit for 15 minutes or so, to allow the flavours to mingle and the salt to draw out some of the vegetable juices.

© 2018 All rights reserved. Published by Murdoch Books.