About Cucumbers
There are several different varieties of cucumbers that are grown commercially. The slicing cucumbers that we usually put on top of our salad are actually harvested when they are unripe because their ripe yellow fruit is sour and bitter. Pickling cucumbers are smaller than their slicing cousins. Some types of pickling cucumbers include kirby and liberty cucumbers. At Warner Farm we grow both pickling and slicing cucumbers for all your culinary needs!
Recipes
Cucumbers are such are great light flavor to help you cool off during a hot summer day. From salads to lemonade, cucumbers just scream summer. Give these try to freshen up your next picnic or try your hand at making your own pickles!
Cucumber Peanut Salad
from 101 Cookbooks
Yield: Serves 4
- 3 medium cucumbers, partially peeled
- 1-2 green serrano chiles, stemmed and minced
- 1/2 cup / 2.5 ounces / 70 g peanuts, toasted
- 1/3 cup / 1.5 ounces / 45 g dried large-flake coconut, toasted
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon natural cane sugar
- 1 tablespoon, ghee, clarified butter, or sunflower oil
- 1/2 teaspoon black mustard seeds
- 1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds
- scant 1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
- a handful cilantro, chopped
Halve the cucumbers lengthwise, scrape out the seeds, and chop into pieces roughly the size of pencil erasers. Just before you’re ready to serve, transfer to a mixing bowl and toss gently with chilies, peanuts, coconut, lemon juice, and sugar.
Over medium heat melt the ghee in a small skillet. When hot stir in the mustard seeds. They are going to sputter and spit a bit, and when this starts to happen, add the cumin for 15-30 seconds, just long enough to toast the spices. Cover with a lid if needed. Remove from heat, stir in the salt, and immediately stir this into the salad. Turn out onto a patter topped with the cilantro.
Cucumber Lemonade
from Smitten Kitchen
Yield: Makes just over 1 quart (4 cups)
1 pound cucumber(s), peeled or unpeeled, cut into large chunks, plus a few extra thin cucumber slices for garnish
1 cup lemon juice (from about 7 to 8 lemons, although juiciness will vary)
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 cups cold water
Run cucumber through a blender or food processor until pureed, then run it for a full extra minute to ensure that it’s as processed as possible. Set a fine-mesh strainer or a regular strainer lined with a couple layers of cheesecloth or a coffee filter over a pitcher and pour cucumber puree through it, stirring to help it move along faster. Discard solids. In the pitcher, you should have about 1 cup cucumber juice. Add lemon juice and sugar to it, then water. Give it a good stir or shake, and let it sit in the fridge (to get it started chilling) for 15 minutes, after which a couple more stirs or shakes should leave the sugar fully dissolved. Taste lemonade, adding more sugar or water if desired. (See Notes up top about concentration and sweetness.) Serve chilled over ice, with or without a splash of seltzer on top. You can fancy up the glass with a garnish of cucumber slice, if desired.
Can we put gin in this? Of course you can.
Cucumber-Watermelon Salad
from The New York Times
- 4 cups watermelon, seeded and cut into generous 1/2-inch cubes
- 3 cups Asian or English cucumbers(about 2 large cucumbers), peeled, seeded and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
- 3 ½ tablespoons fresh lime juice
- 3 tablespoons hoisin sauce
- 2 teaspoons seeded and finely diced jalapeño, or to taste
- ½ teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
- ⅓ cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
- Black pepper
- ⅓ cup coarsely chopped lightly salted pistachios
Combine melon and cucumber in a colander set over a medium bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 30 minutes and up to 4 hours.
Transfer melon and cucumber to serving bowl. Whisk lime juice, hoisin sauce, jalapeño and salt in a small bowl and pour over cucumber and melon. Add parsley and toss gently. Add black pepper to taste and additional salt if needed. Sprinkle the salad with pistachios.
Easiest Fridge Dill Pickles
from Smitten Kitchen
You can tweak these in any number of ways. You can add a couple cloves of garlic, lightly crushed but still inside their skin. You can use 1/2 to 1 teaspoon dill seeds instead of the fresh dill or 1 tablespoon of pickling spice, if you prefer that flavor. You could add all or a part of one white onion, sliced paper thin. You can add a bay leaf or two. But, for us at least, the treat is how you can skip all of the above and still make a perfect pickle snack. With four ingredients, you’ve got no excuse not to always have them on hand.
- 8 larger or to 10 smaller firm, fresh pickling cucumbers
- 3 teaspoons kosher, coarse or pickling salt (if using a featherweight brand such as Diamond, use a little more)
- 1 to 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
- 1/2 cup white vinegar
Slice your cucumbers very thin — ideally 1/8-inch or smaller slices — by hand or using a mandolin. Place them in a 1-liter or equivalent lidded jar. Add 3 teaspoons salt and dill, then pour in white vinegar. Close the jar and give it a few shakes to begin distributing the ingredients.
You’re going to find the liquid level in the jar worrisomely low as it is well below the pickle pile line, but don’t fret. Within an hour or two, the salt will draw the moisture from the cucumbers and wilt them, while the liquid becomes a perfectly balanced pickle brine.
Place jar in the refrigerator near the front, which should remind you to shake it once or twice more over the new few hours. (Or whenever you’re back at the fridge.) You can eat them as little as 1 to 2 hours later, but they become ideal at 6 to 8 hours. They’ll keep in the fridge, submerged in their brine, for 3 weeks, though never around here.
Cabbage
Carrots
