THAI PAPAYA SALAD

Papaya trees grow from a seed to a fruit-bearing 20 foot tree in about eighteen months. And they fruit the way rabbits breed. In a bunch. They are not one of my favourite fruit because they have a slight bitter undertone. But young green papaya when made into a Thai salad transforms into something quite, quite wonderful. Utterly refreshing. 

My first encounter of a Thai papaya salad was at the Thai ambassador's cocktail party many years ago. In an effort to promote their cuisine they had booths set up to demonstrate the makings of various scrumptious Thai dishes. Surprisingly amoung all other mouth-watering dishes the one dish that I fell in love with was the Thai papaya salad. 

I think it was the combination and perfect balance of fresh fruit, toasted dried shrimps, hot chillies, salty fish sauce, tart lime juice and crunchy peanuts that won me over.

With the Thai papaya salad comes the above, right, which, I  believe, is a Thai invention. The papaya/fruit shredder. It looks like an ordinary fruit or vegetable peeler the only difference being that the blade is grooved intermittently across. 

I saw this device on Luke Nguyen's show and have been scavenging the shops ever since. I had asked the Thai girl at the organic shop which I frequent where to get one. She looked at me incredulously and said ...anywhere. Obviously I had not been anywhere. Well finally it wasn't anywhere that I found this pretty device but at Vivahome along Jalan Loke Yew....a large spanking new mall that has shops selling nothing else but kitchen things and home furnishings. From end to end and top to bottom. Finally mother and I had landed in heaven.

 

The recipe ~


I bought a very firm, dark green, young papaya, the inside a light orange and firm, the shredding of which was bliss.

Thai Papaya Salad ~


2 - 2 1/2 cups of shredded young papaya
Juice of 2 limes
1/4 cup palm sugar , grated
1 T water
salt
1 red chilli, chopped finely or 2 bird chillies crushed
1 T fish sauce
2 T dried shrimps, toasted or lightly fried in a little oil
a few sprigs of coriander leaves with stems, chopped finely


Put the shredded papaya into a large bowl. throw in the chopped chilli and coriander.

Mix the palm sugar and water in a small pot and heat until sugar dissolves. Keep aside and allow to cool. 


Meanwhile pound dried shrimps in a pestle and mortar and then add peanuts and pound gently to just crush peanuts. Do not pound to a paste.The mixture should be crumbly and the nuts in small chunks.


Mix the cooled syrup with the lime juice and fish sauce in another bowl and pour this dressing over the shredded papaya mixture. Add the pounded shrimps and peanuts and mix with your fingers or two spoons gently to coat the fruit evenly with the dressing. Add fish sauce or extra lime juice to balance the flavours.

Sprinkle more crushed peanuts over the top.


Serve cold or at room temperature as a side dish.

Note : A combination of shredded cucumber and papaya is good too.

KIMCHI

Kim Chi ~ Tell me how cute a name is that? Bimbim Bap ~ Tell me how cute a name is that? Soondooboo Jiigae? Kimchi Bokeum Bap? Have I made my point? And aren't those Korean actors and actresses just as cute too? I know my nieces definitely think they are.

And as cute as the name may very well be....kimchi is not a photogenic food, like rendang. It took me all 2 days of sweat, sweat and sweat to come up with some decent photographs. After all it was simply cabbage on a plate and the other just a brown mash of meat.

But like the Malaysian rendang there is nothing plain about the Korean kimchi. The spiciness from the chillie and the flavours from the garlic, grated ginger and a sweet edge from the fruit puree that I had used made it a fantastic appetizer. Plus I've had this craving for some kimchi-jeon (kimchi pancakes) ever since I saw photographs of my nieces enjoying a Korean meal in Korea with the said pancake in full view of my computer screen.

I was told by a lady herbalist that cayenne pepper was the closest that I could get to Korean chiilie flakes or chillie paste. I chose to believe her because I wasn't about to scavenge all over town in the present scorching weather in search of something that I may never find.

 I had also searched blogs for the recipe. Simple they all say and indeed it was. Finally I used a combination of  recipes from Closet Cooking and Dr. Ben Kim's site. Two very interesting and informative sites. 

I'm not sure if it will past the test with a Korean but it was certainly good enough for me and my craving. 

Tomorrow it will be kimchi-jeon for me lunch! YUMMM

The recipe ~ 

1 napa cabbage
1/2 cup salt
1 cup gochugaru (Korean chillie flakes) I used 1/2 cup cayenne pepper instead
3-4 stalks spring onions
4 cloves garlic
1 in grated ginger
2 T fish sauce
puree from 1/2 apple, and 1/2 pear as per Dr. Ben Kim's recipe


Seperate the cabbage leaves and trim away the hard core. Then slice the cabbage leaves to one inch lengths.


Place one layer of the cut cabbage in a stainles steel bowl and sprinkle some salt over it. The proceed likewise with the rest of the cabbage , sprinkling salt over each layer. Cover with a plate and leave for about 4 hours until the cabbage has softened.


The salt acts as a preservative for the pickle. Rinse away the salt from the cabbage and drain and put the cabbage in a  bowl.

Chop the spring onions into 1 inch lengths, grate the ginger, mince the garlic, place in bowl and to all of these add the fish sauce. Mix. Add the pureed fruits and mix again. Add this mixture to the to the cabbage and sprinkle on the gochugaru. Mix well. Bottle the kimchi and leave to stand for 3 days at room temperature and then keep in the refrigerator. Will keep for a month.


I only let it stand for 24 hours at room temperature because it is so humid and hot here. 

PS  ~ Some of you may find 1/2 cup of cayenne a little too much....I find it a little too spicy myself ....so perhaps 1/4 would be moderately spicy.


Do take note ~ An anonymous reader has pointed out in the comment list that...."kimchi is FERMENTED like yoghurt and miso. It is not just 'pickled'". My sincere apologies for overlooking the difference. I must be more careful.

THAI GLASS NOODLE SALAD

Glass noodles ~ cellophane noodles ~ mung bean threads ~ su'on ~ tunghoon ~ they're all one and the same. Slippery glass threads that are near impossible to scoop up if they were put into a soup. It's not to be confused with rice noodles.

It's complete transparency and its feel as it slips through your lips, slides over your tongue and slithers down your throat makes it a very unique noodle. 

It is an ingredient in a lovely soup with dried or fresh shrimps  that I used to eat as a child. A soup that's made up of bean curd skin, loofah, wooden ear fungus, golden needles and finally the glass noodles. Delicious. It was a favourite vegetable soup. But it was always the glass noodles that attracted and fascinated me more than anything else. It kept me busy.

But the Thais have made it the main ingredient in a light and lovely salad. Less slithery because it is not in a soup but is a moist salad and very delicious because it is mixed with a spicy, salty, sour and sweet dressing made of fish sauce, lime juice, bird chillies and brown sugar with the addition of some prawns, dried and fresh, and minced chicken. MMMM

My son and I had it for lunch today. It was a healthy lunch. Unfortunately I spoiled the 'healthy' part by gorging on some pineapple tarts I had baked right after. And as if I hadn't sinned enough.....2 hours after that I had a bowl of ice cream. But I redeemed myself by having an orange after.

Shall I'll try again tomorrow?

I have to tell you that it tasted even better after I had some later in the evening after the noodles had absorbed all the flavours of the dressing. Double MMMMMMMM

The recipe ~ the measurements are approximate since I had thrown everything in before remembering to measure them.....

100 gm dried glass noodles

100-150 gm minced chicken

5-6 pieces of medium prawns, shelled and cleaned, left whole season with little salt and pepper

1 cup of chopped spring onions

1/4 cup of chopped coriander

1/2 red onion, sliced

1 T dried shrimps, fried to a crisp and pounded finely (optional but more flavourful if included)

The 

Dressing ~

3 T fish sauce

1 T brown sugar

3-4 bird chillies or use large chillies if you prefer less heat

1-2 T lime juice

Soak the glass noodles in cold water to soften for about 10 minutes. Then drain placing the noodles back into the bowl. Pour just boiled water into the bowl of noodles and let stand for just 3-4 seconds and then drain thoroughly running cold water through to rid it of the heat. Keep aside.

Cook the minced chicken in a frying pan using only 1/2 tablespoon of cooking oil. Season with very little salt and pepper. Scoop out to a bowl. Saute the prawns in the same pan. Add a little oil of too dry. Don't use to much salt because the fish sauce is very salty.

Place the fish sauce and the brown sugar in a small pot and cook to a syrup. 

Pound the chillies or chop them. Then mix the rest of the dressing ingredients to the fish sauce syrup. Taste and adjust for sweetness and tartness. 

Combine the noodles, chopped spring onions, coriander sliced onions, cooked minced chicken fresh prawns and dried shrimps in a medium bowl. Pour the dressing over and mix well. Adjust for saltiness by adding salt or a few dashes of fish sauce. Serve. 

A PASTA SALAD WITH SARDINES IN OIL

I don't want to rant about the weather. Well............maybe I do.

The sun shines in the morning nice and bright. But by at least 12 noon its starts to get cloudy and it drizzles. And 2 hours later it pours like we are being hosed down by the fire department. Everything is grey outside and while its kind of cool in feeling it's certainly not 'cool' a time to be taking photographs.

I scurry with my plate of whatever to my garden/front yard after fumbling with the keys to the grille (we must be careful these days in the city...snatch thieves and baddies can pop up anywhere and at any time) and place my props (which sometimes trail and drop all over behind me in my hurry) and place them as nicely as I can under a slowly closing sky (it's too dark in the house) and then I start snapping in between drizzles before it threatens to pour.


I scurry back inside with me plate and props.......perspiring.....in the humidity, un-click my memory card and snap it in to my comp. I check out the photos and they are all DULL.

I haven't been posting for some time and those are the reasons up there. Dark skies, pouring rain and dull pictures.

And ....hub drags/threatens/lectures/reads out the list of benefits of going to the gym.......every morning (Yes.... I'm like that). So that leaves me with dark, dull, grey afternoons to contemplate the worth of a photography session.

But post I must .....so here's a dish of a noodle salad weaved with sardines, chunks of tomatoes, chopped green chillies, minced red onions and a dressing of mustard seeds, olive oil and lime juice. And a nice crunchy tasty topping of fried breadcrumbs. Nice and quite healthy.

This is a very easy dish to prepare. I would have used local noodles if I had some but pasta was good too. The only reason I prefer local noodles is because they are more tender and I could get the ones made without eggs.

I am sure freshly made pasta is awesome and is no comparison to the dried ones that I use, which I find a little 'tough' if I could use the word. Because I have never tasted freshly made pasta, I have, as a result, always preferred our local noodles for their texture.

Being a fish person I also love the use of sardines in oil in this dish. If I had my way I would have added some bird chilies to give it a bit more of a kick. But what topped it all was the use of the crispy fried breadcrumbs. It added that crunch. Jamie Oliver has some wonderful ideas and these breadcrumbs are one of them!



The recipe.................. for 1 or 2 persons

6 0zs of spaghetti, boiled in salted water with a dash of olive oil till till al dente and drained
1 small red onion, minced
1 green chillie or bird chillies,chopped
a handful of cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered
1 small can of sardines in oil (I used 120 gm can), drained

The dressing......

2 T olive oil
1-2 T lime juice
1-2 T mustard seeds (biji sawi), roasted in dry pan and pounded or 1 T whole grain mustard
1 or 2 cloves garlic, pounded or crushed
salt n pepper/chillie flakes

Topping............from Jamie Oliver's book (not to a T though)

A cup of breadcrumbs seasoned with salt and pepper and some herbs if you like..
4 -5 T of olive/vegetable oil

Heat up the oil in a small pan. Drop the breadcrumbs in to the pan, spread it out evenly in a layer and fry till golden brown. Once crisp and brown lift off an d drain on kitchen paper

The Salad...........

Mix all the dressing ingredients with a whisk. Taste and adjust for salt and tangy-ness.

Place boiled and cooked spaghetti in a medium bowl, pour in dressing, followed by the chopped veggies and and sardines. Mix and toss well. Adjust for salt and pepper and tangy-ness again. Top with fried breadcrumbs. Serve cold. YUM.

SPRING ROLLS

There shouldn't be a recipe for spring rolls unless you like it in a certain way. And I do.

I like it when the spring roll skin has been lined with lettuce leaves for prettiness, smeared with 3 kinds of sauces for piquant-ness, heaped with julienned vegetables for crispness, piled with fruit for sweetness, sprinkled with crushed peanuts for crunchiness and maximised with shards of prawn crackers for saltiness. And only then will my spring rolls be perfect, nice, fat and outrageous.


That's the way I like it..... uh huh

But there is some work to be done beforehand. Don't be scared......just a little slicing, shredding and some Aristotelian compartmentalizing. And maybe a little boiling.... Uh huh...

Sengkuang or turnip I like. But I like them cooked. And I like them sweet. Because that's what my favourite spring roll stall does. I know because I asked. The turnip is shredded and boiled in brown sugar syrup until the turnips become gentle and soft and sweet. As sweet and gentle as you like it to be.


The carrots and the cucumber are to be brilliantly julienned, the sunshiny pineapple is to be peeled and chopped into bitty bits, some roasted peanuts crushed with a little love and some prawn crackers (or potato crisps) fragmented into tintillating pink shards. That's the Nigella part.

The 3 sauces are to be ready on the work top with a teaspoon dipped in each. Hoisin sauce from your supermarket shelf, taucheo sauce (yellow bean sauce) from the same shelf and a cooked chilli paste either bought in a bottle or homemade from blended dried chillies and sauteed in some amount of oil with a wisp of sugar and salt. That's the saucy part.


The spring roll skin would behave if separated and peeled before hand and covered with a damp cloth to prevent drying.

And the lettuce leaves would be very happy if they were washed and patted dry very tenderly.

Get a spring roll skin to lay quietly on the board. Introduce the pretty lettuce to the spring roll skin and let them be together. Spoon tiny dollops each of the saucy sauces onto the lettuce leaves to add some excitement. Bring the sweet shredded turnips (drained of syrup), julienned carrots, julienned cucumber and pineapple bitty bits together in a heap of fun. Then add a dash of crushed peanuts and the shards of pink prawn crackers for some wickedness.


Bring your fingers together and rock and roll.

Have a great party!

CRISPY FRIED FISH WITH SAMBAL AND A GREEN MANGO SALAD

I can think of no other way of preparing these tiny, fresh, slender, skinny, yellow tail scad fish (ikan selar kuning) than to deep fry them to a crisp so their bones become dry and brittle, so you could snap them, savour their sweetness, bite their paper thin crisp gills, their lips, their little tails and devour each whole leaving very little of their remains behind. Like a cat would. It's totally fulfilling and lip smacking satisfying.

Especially if you have hot, steaming white rice, and heady luscious condiments like sambal belacan and a sour spicy green mango salad right next to you. Quite the complete rustic meal. Nothing fancy. The whole meal set covers the 3 food groups. Fried, boiled and raw.



There are usually 2 sizes of this fish sold at the market but for deep frying to a crisp, the 4 1/2 or 5 inch ones are the ones to go for. And if you get the fishmonger to clean them for you preparing them for frying would be a breeze.

The secret or not so secret of frying fish to a crisp would of course be very hot oil, a nice crisp forming batter and patting down the fish with some paper towels before coating and frying them. And don't over crowd the pan or wok either or you'll bring the temperature of the oil down and your fish will not be as crisp as you would like them to be. The tumeric used in this batter is typical of Malay fried foods and it gives off a lovely earthy flavour.

We had a wonderful (ok.... unhealthy) dinner tonight and my daughter who complained recently about having missed most of the foods that I blg about was licking her fingers clean, smacking her lips and she went mmm...

Here's the recipe for the fried fish.............


For the amount of batter in this recipe you would be able to fry about...

8 - 9 small fish, gutted, cleaned and patted dry
3 tablespoons of cornflour
2 tablespoons of tumeric powder
1 tablespoon of salt
2-3 tablespoon of water

Vegetable oil for deep frying

Mix the above ingredients to a thick but slightly loose paste. Drop in the fish that has been patted with kitchen paper towel of excess moisture into the paste/batter. Use a spoon or spatula to mix and coat the fish into the batter.

Heat up a deep wok until hot then pour in enough oil for deep frying and when the oil is very hot drop the fish in a few at a time as long as you don't over crowd the wok. Fry until a golden brown and crisp. Continue with the next batch and drain them on paper towels to rid of excess oil. Serve hot.

Please note that this is not a batter where you dip the fish in and fry them. I t is more of a coating batter where the fish are put into the bowl and mixed aroudn until they are coated. So you will not be getting half a bowl full of liquid batter from this recipe.

Sambal Belacan.........


I inch square piece of dried shrimp paste, roasted in a dry pan
4 large red chillies
a few bird chillies if you like
juice of 2 or 3 kalamansi limes (I didn't have these so I used the bigger limes, which are not as nice, in my opinion)

Pound the chillies quite finely using a little salt as an abrasive in a pestle and mortar (or mortar and pestle, whichever came first). Add the toasted shrimp paste and pound again until you get a nice fiery red and moist paste. Scoop the luscious paste into a small bowl and squeeze lime juice over. Mix with a spoon. It's ready to be served.

Green mango salad.......My MIL's version....


3 mediun sized green mangoes, peeled and shredded or grated coarsely
1 cm x 2cm piece of toasted shrimp paste
2 large red chillies
some bird chillies if you like
salt

A handful of roasted and crushed peanuts (I didn't have this)

Put about a tablespoon of salt in the shredded mangoes and mix them well. keep aside for about 15 minutes to allow the juices from the mango to exude and to reduce the sourness. After 15 minutes use your hand to squeeze teh mango pulp as dry as you can. Then place the shredded mango into a colander and run some water through to rid it of excess salt.

Pound the chillies and shrimp paste in a pestle and mortar until quite fine but not too fine. Mix the paste with the rinsed shredded mangoes well until evenly distributed. Scatter some crushed peanuts over the top and it's ready to be served.

Serve the fried crispy fish with the sambal belacan and teh green mango salad. YUMMEE.

A MALAY BEAN SPROUT SALAD - KERABU TAUGEH

This is a Malay salad recipe that is one of my favourites. I love the combination for the dressing which happens to work superbly as a dressing for a bowl of boiled, fat and juicy cockles as well....absolutely mouth watering. However, if you would like the best of both worlds the combination of cockles and bean sprouts and the dressing makes a fantastic seafood vegetable salad and in my opinion it is salad heaven.

I just can't describe how much I love this dish. Unfortunately I could not get any decent cockles at the wet market today so I had to settle for a just a lovely bean sprout salad.

The dressing is made up of typical South East Asian ingredients. Tamarind juice for the sourness, lime juice for it's tanginess, a pounded golden coconutty paste (kerisik) for body and sweetness and chillies for some spiciness and bite. A totally absorbful, if there is such a word, and clingy dressing. The bean sprouts take in the flavours well and if I had used cockles the dressing would just coat, enter its crevices and cling to those succulent, juicy morsels.


Here's the recipe..........

180 gm of bean sprouts, tailed if you're feeling up to it, washed and drained.
3 limes
1 Tbsp of tamarind paste
2 large red chillies
3 bird chillies (optional)
5-6 shallots, sliced finely
1 cup of freshly grated coconut or 2/3 cup canned dessicated coconut
salt

Place the grated coconut into a small to medium pan and dry fry or roast until it turns a dark golden brown. This takes about 7 to 9 minutes over medium flame. Watch it carefully because the coconut can burn easily and keep stirring to allow the coconut to brown evenly.

While it is still hot or warm pound the roasted/fried grated coconut in a pestle and mortar until it becomes a thick brown paste and the oils exudes. Scrape it up and put it in a medium bowl.

Pound the fresh chillies and bird chilies, if using, until it is quite fine or pasty and throw that into the bowl too. Mix the tamarind paste with 2 tablespoons of water and strain and pour that into the bowl as well. Squeeze the limes, discard the seeds and pour that in as well. Stir the mixture until it is well combined, add salt to taste and adjust sourness with extra lime juice if necessary and sweetness with a tiny sprinkle of sugar if you like. Mix well.

Add the raw bean sprouts, sliced shallots and boiled cockles if using and toss well incorporating the dressing into the vegetables/cockles well. Taste for salt again and adjust. Serve slightly chilled or at room temperature. YUMMMMM.

SRI LANKAN SALAD MOJU

Thank god I have something to blog about. Finally. I was getting a little desperate and was considering taking pictures of my cat.

This is a dish where I had scrutinized the tv, furrowed my eyebrows and pricked my ears up just to get at that little bit of ingredient that I kept missing on AFC because some people were having a cross fire discussion on either side of me, quite loudly, or someone called out for me at that very crucial moment, quite loudly, or the surat khabar lama man (old newspaper collecting man) announced himself, quite loudly.

And what made it totally weird was that it each happened at the exact moment that particular ingredient was being thrown in and mentioned by the Sri Lankan chef while Bobby Chin chatted into his ear, quite loudly, which blurred out the word of the ingredient that he was mentioning anyway.



Finally though after watching the show once again (again) (thank God for reruns) I finally caught the word. And it was just a spoonful of plain old sugar...

Then I became puzzled by the word moju......I just had to know what it meant. This is a brinjal moju, then there is also the fish moju. I googled but I couldn't find the meaning for the word anywhere. Feeling a little frustrated I finally requested my son to enquire the meaning from his Sri Lankan friend and it turns out that moju simply means pickle or something like a pickle. And that makes sense because this dish uses vinegar and is sort of picklish in flavour.



The ingredients that went in made this dish very enticing. There were so many flavours folded in. It has cinnamon, garlic, ginger, a fruit pickle, pepper, vinegar, fried dried anchovies (ikan bilis)and mustard seed paste. The last was a very intriguing ingredient because I have never used pounded mustard seeds before.



Although sauteed mustard seeds taste pleasantly nutty with an almost groundnut flavour, roasted/sauteed and pounded mustard seeds however gave off such an unexpected and astonishing albeit familiar aroma that it took me quite by surprise and it was quite a while before I could place my finger on that very familiar smell. Finally after taking it all in I realized that it had the exact same aroma as dry fried grated coconut which had then been pounded to a paste. Exactly.

I then tasted it and it was simply good. I loved it. I couldn't wait to get to the end of this dish because it looked terribly appetizing and saliva inducing.



So here's the recipe.....

4 small brinjals
3-4 whole green chillies
5-6 shallots peeled and left whole

2 pips garlic, peeled
1 inch ginger, skinned
1/2 inch cinnamon
ground black pepper
1/2 tsp tumeric powder
1 tsp sugar
1 or 2 tbsp of mango chutney (or other fruit chutney)
1 -2 tsp rice vinegar (I used apple cider) or you clould use tamarind juice (yum)
2 tbsp or sauteed mustard seeds pounded to a paste

a handful of dried anchovies fried to a crisp (optional)

Pound garlic, ginger and cinnamon bark in a pestle and mortar using some salt as an abrasive.

In a medium bowl put in the ginger/garlic paste, add tumeric powder, some ground black pepper mango chutney, vinegar and the lovely mustard seed paste. Mix tehm all around and add some pepper or cayenne pepper if you like to spice it up.

Cut the brinjals into thickish strips (very much like chunky fries) and deep fry the brinjals, shallots and whole chillies in hot oild briefly just until the brinjals turn light brown. Drain
of excess oil and put them into the bowl of dressing.Add the fried anchovies and mix them up like you would salad. Adjust flavours by adding a little more salt,vinegar or chutney to your taste. Serve. YUMMM

COOL CUKE SALAD

Well I never! Imagine seeing a cucumber salad recipe on the New Scandinavian food show and realize after you make it that it tastes exactly the same as the one that your mother in law used to make in a far flung corner of the island of Borneo, thousand of miles away from snow capped mountains, freezing rivers, romantic and idyllic looking grassy slopes and with no bone freezing wind whipping your face.


The show has an IKEA-ish looking outdoor kitchen put together in a matter of minutes usually on a cold Scandinavian mountain top with a picturesque view of snow capped mountains and a wide, lazy bend of a river in the background.

My late mom in law did it in a hot humid corner of her kitchen with no such view, but where a cool cuke salad fitted perfectly in and was a perfectly logical dish to serve on a hot, humid, blistering and blazing afternoon for lunch.


And so it was. Exactly the same. I guess. Because blond, gap-toothed Andre Viestad, who pronounces every syllable so precisely and a little haltingly and uses deciliters in his recipes, called for white wine vinegar but I used apple cider vinegar instead. I do suspect white wine vinegar might taste a little sweeter but whatever it is this is a recipe for very lazy people and for those on a seriously intensive diet. It has no oil, no egg yolk or no any kind of fat in its dressing. Nothing could be simpler and it is definitely refreshing. I could have eaten the whole dish as a snack except that I am/was/and never will be on a diet.


But for those who are...............here's the recipe............

1 cucumber, sliced very thinly
coarse salt

1 medium red onion, cut in half and sliced thinly
1 -2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp sugar

Sprinkle some coarse salt (to taste) on the sliced cucumber pieces in a bowl, cover the bowl with a plate and shake for a few seconds to get the salt into the cucumber slices, to soften them and to draw the juice out of the cucumber. This allows the cucumber to soak in the dressing afterwards.

Add the sliced red onions, the vinegar and sugar. Mix them all up, chill if desired, and serve. You could add some sliced red chillies too like I did!

Cucumber Salad in Coconut Milk

This is a very simple cold salad that is very refreshing and easy on the palate. It balances a rich and spicy meal.

2 cups of sliced cucumber, thinly sliced
1 cup of sliced pineapple (optional but nice)
I large onion sliced thinly in rings
3-4 prawns peeled and sliced horizontally and boiled until it turns pink
1 egg, hard boiled and quartered
1/2 a large chillie seeded and sliced

About 1 cup of thick coconut milk, the consistency of fresh milk
salt to taste
squirts from 1 large lime

Mix all sliced vegetables and prawns with the coconut milk, lime juice and salt.Season and adjust to taste until the balance of salt and sourness and the sweetness form the coconut milk is just right.

Place the mixed salad in a serving bowl and then place the quartered egg randomly around it. Chill before serving.

TIP : In the picture you can see that I did not slice the cucumber in the normal way but what I did was to cut the cucumber into short 1 1/2 inch lengths and then I ran the knife around each length spiral-like until I reached the core and threw the core away. It would look something like the skin of an apple that does not break off when you peel it around and around and around continuously. Then I sliced the 'spring' into thin strips. Sounds confusing?Actually slicing normally would be perfect but I just wanted it to look a little nice in the picture that's all.