When I was growing up, my mom often made two different cucumber salads. For each of the salads, she sliced fresh cucumbers into very thin rounds. In one salad, the cucumbers bathed in a clear vinegar-water solution seasoned with sugar and lots of black pepper. I always liked that salad. My favorite, though, was the salad made of thinly sliced cucumbers swimming in a delicious sour cream sauce with sugar and vinegar stirred in along with thin, delicate threads of fresh dill weed.
During the last couple of weeks I’ve been able to purchase English, or seedless, cucumbers at my local farmers market. These long, slender cukes are not really seedless, but the seeds are so small and insignificant compared to regular cucumbers, they seem seedless when they’re being eaten.
Last night I served the Sour Cream Cucumber Salad with grilled pork chops, potatoes and beans. This is a salad that is good with everything. My Hungarian mother always served Sour Cream Cucumber Salad with a traditional meal of Paprika Chicken and tiny homemade dumplings. Since my mom taught me how to make this salad, I often refer to it as Hungarian Cucumber Salad.
The biggest lesson I learned when stepping up from someone who occasionally cooked for herself to someone who cooks for a living is that the quality of ingredients is at the apex of importance. Actually, I think tasting the difference between food cooked with cheap or old elements, and fresh, high quality ingredients is a skill everyone develops whether they cook or not. This past summer I was walking home from the gym and passed a Mr. Softee truck. I was feeling depleted and entitled from my workout and stopped for a van/choc swirl cone- a prized acquisition in my childhood.
This hot weather has had me craving countless summery foods and refreshing drinks, more than I can count. To keep cool I've been snacking on fruit and drinking iced teas and smoothies. Recently I was reminded of the popularity of mangoes while walking in the city on an extremely hot day. Everywhere I noticed vendors selling mangoes carved into flowers. I couldn't help but feel transported to South America where that custom is prevalent. Mangoes are a celebrated fruit throughout the world with hundreds of varieties grown in tropical climates, particularly in India from where they originate. Mangoes can be enjoyed as desserts and snacks or in savory dishes like Indian chutneys and pickles. But one of the most popular ways to enjoy a mango is with a lassi, a traditional Indian yogurt smoothie.
Peas are one of my favorite vegetables to grow. Just plant them near something they can attach to and watch them emerge from the earth, their tendrils climbing and clinging, eventually bearing bulbous pods filled with green pearls. I grow two varieties: classic shell peas and sugar snap peas, which I use mainly for stir-frying. But I love them raw too. They make a nice addition to a salad. Every now and then I'll pluck one from the bush and nibble on it while I'm out and about in the garden. Snap peas are crispy, sweet, and completely edible, pod and all. For me peas are the harbingers of spring going into summer.
My improvisational style of cooking involves templates. Especially when it comes to cold noodles. I hate thinking of them as “salads” since that implies a “dressing” that is at the forefront. Instead, they’re bowls of cool freshness, or fresh coolness. When it’s hot I want a flavor bomb, some spice and not a lot of fat. That fat part? Speaking not from a diet perspective but from a mouth feel. Hot weather eating cries out for something clean, with a defined flavor profile. Not sludgy. So I tend to look toward Asia for flavor influence.