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Awning Cucumber Salad
Select rather large, long cucumbers, very green. Cut them in 2-inch lengths without paring. Be sure one end of each section is flat, so that it will stand upright. Scoop out as much of the center as possible, still leaving about 3/8 inch white border on outside. Mix the scooped-out cucumber with minced celery and chopped tomato and little minced onion, moisten with mayonnaise or sour cream, season with salt and pepper. Chill. Now pare away with sharp pointed knife 1/4 inch wide sections of the green peeling on the cucumber lengths. Arrange it so that there will be alternating lengthwise strips of green and white, about 1/4 inch widths. Set in ice box to get cold. Also have a green pepper ready. When ready to serve, place a thick slice tomato on each salad plate. Stuff the salad mixture into the cavities of the cucumbers. Stand the stuffed cucumber lengths on the tomato slice. Finish off with a thin ring of green pepper. Serve very cold.
A garnish-driven salad that depends entirely on the striping and on everything being genuinely cold. Nothing here is difficult, but the cucumber choice makes or breaks it.
- Pick the right cucumberStandard waxed supermarket cucumbers have thick, bitter skin and a soft seedy core that will not hold a wall. Use unwaxed field cucumbers or the fatter end of an English cucumber, and scrub the wax off if that is all you can get.
- The 3/8-inch wallThis is the hinge of the dish. Thinner and the cylinder collapses when stuffed; thicker and there is no cavity worth filling. A melon baller or a narrow grapefruit spoon works better than a knife for hollowing.
- Trim the ends trueCut the 2-inch sections with the knife square to the cucumber, then shave the base flat on a board. A cylinder that leans will topple once the filling goes in.
- StripingPeel the 1/4-inch bands with a swivel peeler drawn straight down rather than a pointed knife. Do it before hollowing, while the cucumber is still rigid and easy to grip.
- Drain the fillingChopped tomato and scooped cucumber flesh both weep. Salt the mixture, let it sit ten minutes in a sieve, then press lightly and dress it, or the mayonnaise will slacken to soup in the fridge.
- Sour cream optionSour cream at the time may have been home-soured cream rather than the standardised cultured product, and correspondingly thinner and sharper. If using modern sour cream, a spoonful of lemon juice will sharpen it.
- TimingStuff at the last moment as directed. Filled cucumbers left standing go watery and the walls lose their snap.
- YieldOne large cucumber gives three or four sections; two stuffed lengths on a tomato slice makes a first-course portion, so figure three or four cucumbers for six.