Recipe · SALAD
Creamy Cucumber Yogurt Salad
A cucumber is somewhere around 96% water, and none of that water is committed to staying inside it. This is the only thing you need to know to make this salad work, and the reason most versions of it end up sitting in a thin grey pool.
Salting draws the water out through osmosis before it can get into your dressing. Fifteen minutes in a colander is enough to lose several tablespoons — visibly, into the sink — and the slices that remain are firmer and taste more concentrated, because what is left is cucumber rather than cucumber plus dilution.
Season the dressing more sharply than seems sensible while you are tasting it on a spoon. It is about to be spread over half a kilo of something bland and cold, which mutes everything: the lemon, the garlic and the salt all read weaker on the plate than they did in the bowl.
Recipe
Ingredients
For the cucumber
- 1 large cucumber, very thinly sliced
- 1 tsp fine salt
For the dressing
- 200 g thick yogurt
- 1 clove garlic, grated
- 2 tbsp dill, chopped
- 1 tbsp mint, chopped
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- Juice of half a lemon
- Salt and black pepper
Method
- Salt the cucumber. Toss the slices with the fine salt in a colander and leave for 15 minutes over the sink. A surprising amount of water comes out; pour it off and pat the slices dry.
- Mix the dressing. Stir the yogurt with the garlic, herbs, oil and lemon juice. Season, then taste — it should be sharper than feels right, because the cucumber will mute it.
- Combine. Fold the cucumber through the dressing, or lay the slices out and pour the dressing over if you want it to look like something.
- Chill briefly. Give it 10 minutes in the fridge before serving, and no longer than an hour.
Worth knowing
- The salting step is the whole recipe. Skip it and the water the cucumber is holding thins the dressing to a puddle while you are carrying the bowl to the table.