Smashed Cucumber Salad
the last-cucumber rescue

There's a cucumber in your fridge. It's been in there a few days and it's still perfectly fine, but you keep bypassing it because you don't have a plan. Smash it. Dress it. Eat it in fifteen minutes. It will be better than any cucumber you've recently had in a salad.

The smashing is not a gimmick. When you crush a cucumber with the flat of a knife instead of slicing it cleanly, you create irregular, jagged edges. Those edges are dramatically better at holding onto dressing than the smooth faces of a sliced cucumber. The dressing doesn't just coat the outside — it gets into all the cracks and works its way into the flesh. You end up with something that's properly seasoned all the way through rather than just on the surface.

This is a Chinese dish called pai huang gua, and it's been eaten in one form or another for a very long time. The version here is simple — rice vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, a tiny bit of sugar. You can dress it up with chili oil or keep it minimal. Either way it takes about fifteen minutes from cucumber to table, and most of that time is waiting while salt draws out the excess water.

What you need

• 1 English cucumber or 2 Persian cucumbers (or whatever cucumber is in your fridge)
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar (or white wine vinegar if that's what you have)
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 garlic clove, finely minced or grated on a microplane
• ½ teaspoon sugar
• Optional: ½ teaspoon chili oil or a pinch of red pepper flakes, a teaspoon of sesame seeds, 1 scallion thinly sliced

How to make it

Step 1: Smash the cucumber. Rinse the cucumber and cut off both ends. Place it on a cutting board. Hold your knife sideways — blade parallel to the board — and press or whack down firmly along the length of the cucumber until it cracks and splits open. This is satisfying. Do it in two or three places along the length until the whole cucumber is cracked through. Then cut it crosswise into rough pieces, about an inch wide. The pieces will be irregular and that's correct.

Step 2: Salt and wait. Put the cucumber pieces in a colander set over a bowl, or directly in a bowl if you don't mind draining them later. Sprinkle over the half teaspoon of salt and toss. Let them sit for ten minutes. You'll see liquid collect — this is water and slightly bitter compounds that the salt has drawn out. This step firms up the texture and removes the slight wateriness that makes raw cucumber feel insubstantial. Don't skip it.

Step 3: Make the dressing. While the cucumber sits, combine the rice vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, minced garlic, and sugar in a small bowl. Stir until the sugar dissolves. Taste it. It should be tangy, slightly sweet, savory from the soy, and have that distinctive toasted sesame oil fragrance. If you want heat, add the chili oil or red pepper flakes now.

Step 4: Dry and dress. Shake off or gently pat dry the salted cucumber pieces. You're removing the moisture the salt pulled out — if you don't, the dressing gets diluted. Transfer the cucumber to a serving bowl and pour the dressing over. Toss well to coat every piece.

Step 5: Serve. This is best eaten within about twenty minutes of dressing, before the cucumber softens too much. Scatter sesame seeds and scallion on top if you have them. A drizzle of extra chili oil at the table is excellent if you like heat.

Which cucumber to use

English cucumbers (the long, wrapped kind) work perfectly. Persian cucumbers, which are smaller and usually sold in bags, are excellent — they have thinner skin and fewer seeds. Standard garden cucumbers work too but benefit from having their seeds scooped out first if they're large, because the seed area holds the most water. Whatever you have is fine. Even a cucumber that's been in the fridge for several days is usually still perfectly usable for this dish.

Where this fits in a meal

Serve it alongside almost anything that could use something cool and acidic. Next to rice and whatever protein you're making. Alongside noodles. As a side to the miso butter rice. On top of a grain bowl. As the only thing you're eating because you came home late and there's nothing else ready. It works in all of these situations.

See also: Cucumber yogurt bowl · Quick pickled red onions · NowCook pricing