One of our "use up cucumber" recipes is Tzatziki. It works very well as a salad or as an accompaniment to meat. Here's my recipe but please feel free to vary the quantities at will - you might think an entire cucumber was excessive for example!
Peel and finely chop one cucumber
Mix it with three or four natural yoghurts (or one big one)
Add some finely chopped garlic
Add the juice of one lemon
Mix it up and it's ready to eat!
However, even this isn't enough to use up ALL the cucumbers!
Max is looking after a chateau/hotel this week. The owner is away on holiday with his family and Max is basically house manager/caretaker/trouble shooter. The evening meal is cooked by a chef who comes in each evening to provide the dinner ordered by the guests. He is a delightful man and last year, when Max did the same job, surprised us by presenting us with a "takeaway" gourmet meal on the day Max finished there. It was delicious and all my favourite things.
Max mentioned to Christian yesterday that he was worried I might be planning on buying another fridge as the one we have is stuffed full of cucumbers. "No problem", said Christian (well, actually it was "Pas de probleme", but anyway...) "Just freeze them!"
Oh ha, ha. I have been looking all over the internet to find out how to freeze the wretched things without all sorts of complicated manoeuvres involving brine. I don't have enough tomatoes to make Gazpacho but that's coming. Back to Christian and I happily give you his very simple and straightforward advice.
Peel the cucumbers
Cut in half length ways and remove the centres (which is where most of the water is)
Sprinkle both sides with salt.
Put in plastic bag, seal and freeze.
Just for the record an ice cream scoop is brilliant for taking out the centres.
I froze four this afternoon and will de-freeze one later this week to see how it tastes. Results will be reported here!
Posts
