An inventive recipe for all your cukes: This jumble of potstickers, cucumbers and corn requires very little cooking
Published: 08-13-2024 2:31 PM |
A couple of weeks ago, my friend Jennifer Rich told me that she was overwhelmed with cucumbers. The recent rain had inspired her cucumber vines to produce enormous amounts of fruit. I mentioned that if she got desperate, I could always be counted on to eat a cucumber or two.
A few days later she arrived at my door with a massive bag of cucumbers. I was thrilled. First, I made a bunch of refrigerator dill pickles. We ran that simple recipe in this newspaper on the last day of August in 2022; search the archives if you want it. (Or contact me through my website.)
I also ate cucumbers plain as a thirst-quenching snack or threw them into a green salad. At this time of year, they are sweet beyond belief, with no bitterness at all.
Cucumbers are thought to have originated in India. They were prized for their moisture and health benefits and quickly spread throughout the world. Columbus introduced them to this continent in 1494, and they have been thriving in American gardens ever since.
I had never before tried placing cucumbers on my eyes, as glamorous women do in the movies, but I decided to use a couple of slices of cucumber this way. The practice is indeed beneficial. The antioxidants in the cukes cool the skin, reduce dark circles, and hydrate the tissue around the eyes.
On its website even the beauty company L’Oréal recommends the practice of placing cucumber slices on one’s eyes. Of course, it follows this advice by asking, “What should you do after putting cucumber on your eyes?” The answer, unsurprisingly, is to apply a variety of the company’s products to the eye area.
One can hardly blame a cosmetics company for trying to sell cosmetics, however.
When I told my friend Peter about my bounty of cucumbers, he suggested I try a recipe he had seen on TikTok for an Asian cucumber salad with soy sauce, sesame oil, sesame seeds, rice vinegar, and hot oil or chili sauce.
Article continues after...
Yesterday's Most Read Articles
I was going to try a riff on that for this week’s column — until I looked at The New York Times last week. The food column featured a cucumber salad made with frozen potsticker dumplings. I just happened to have some potstickers in my freezer.
I changed the recipe because I love to play with food. The original was from James Beard award winner Hetty Lui McKinnon, author of the wonderful vegetable book, ”Tenderheart.”
It looked great but smashed the cucumbers. I like my cucumbers unsmashed, visible and crunchy.
I also added a few ingredients to suit my palate, including leftover corn kernels, which are always profuse in my house at this time of year. In short, this is an adaptation. I’m grateful to Hetty Lui McKinnon for the inspiration, however.
The best thing about this recipe, in my opinion, is that the peanut sauce doesn’t have to be cooked. Just add a little hot water to the peanut butter, stir in odds and ends, and voilà! During the dog days of summer, I’m grateful for every opportunity to minimize stove time.
Like McKinnon, I used frozen potstickers, which cooked up in no time. You may of course make your own dumplings. I have made them a couple of times, and they’re even tastier when homemade. The idea behind this recipe was summertime ease, however, so I was happy to use a high-quality convenience food.
By the time I added the corn and warmed everything up, my supper wasn’t exactly a salad. I’d call it a lovely warm dumpling dish with a contrasting base of farm-fresh cucumbers. I think of it as a tasty jumble. Whatever you call it, the meal’s flavors and consistencies complement each other beautifully.
And it comes together quite quickly. At this time of year, when I’m busy savoring every moment of sunlight, I don’t want a fussy meal.
Ingredients:
for the sauce:
1/3 cup peanut butter
1 clove garlic, minced
1 small finger ginger, minced
1/4 cup boiling water plus more as needed
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon maple syrup
hot oil (this can usually be found in the Asian food section of supermarkets) as desired; start with a few drops and add more to taste
for assembly:
4 pickling cucumbers, sliced sprinkled with salt and allowed to sit for 15 minutes
1 pound frozen potsticker dumplings, cooked according to package directions
the kernels from 2 ears of cooked corn (or more!)
toasted sesame seeds
a few sprigs of cilantro (optional)
more hot oil if desired
Instructions:
Whisk together the peanut butter, the garlic, the ginger, and the hot water.
Add a little more hot water if you need it to combine the ingredients, now or later.
Whisk in the remaining sauce ingredients. Allow the sauce to stand while you let the cucumbers salt up and cook the potstickers. Toward the end of the cooking, throw the corn into the pot with the dumplings to reheat it.
Divide the cucumbers among 4 plates. Place the cooked dumplings and most of the corn on top of the cucumbers; then ladle sauce on top. Top with the remaining corn, the sesame seeds, and then the cilantro if you want to use it.
Serve warm with hot oil on the side.
Serves 4.
Tinky Weisblat is an award-winning cookbook author and singer known as the Diva of Deliciousness. Visit her website, TinkyCooks.com.