Cucumber Salad with grapes, toasted almonds and a little garlicessentially a deconstructed white gazpacho!
A perfectly balanced, cool and refreshing summer salad.
Good morning summer and hello cucumbers!
Elise Bauer
What’s your favorite cucumber?
They look sort of cool, but they can get seedy and they can be somewhat awkward to handle.
It grows mad like zucchini, but with smaller leaves and a more vine-y approach to life.
Elise Bauer
For our first cucumber recipe of the season we decided to make a deconstructedwhite gazpachominus the bread.
The almonds give it a lovely crunch, the grapes some sweetness, vinegar a touch of acidity.
The ingredients just happen to be the core of a Spanish favorite cold soup.
Elise Bauer
So, as unusual as the combination may sound, it works.
I even ran out of grapes at one point and made a batch with some golden raisins instead.
That was good too!
Elise Bauer
We recommend a thin-skinned cucumber for this salad, so you might leave the skins on.
But if you have regular thick-skinned cucumbers, those should work fine too, just peel them first.
Cucumber Salad with Grapes and Almonds
We are using thin-skinned Persian cucumbers for this recipe.
Elise Bauer
These cucumbers are mild and the skins are not bitter so we can leave them on.
Cucumbers have a lot of water in them.
This is step one in this recipe.
Elise Bauer
Use a spoon to scoop out the seeds in the middle, discard the seeds.
If using rather large cucumbers, slice them again lengthwise.
Then cut them crosswise into 1/4-inch to 1/2 inch slices.
Place in a large bowl and sprinkle with a teaspoon of kosher salt.
Toss to distribute the salt evenly around the cucumber pieces.
Let sit for 20 to 25 minutes while the salt helps pull excess moisture out of the cucumbers.
Then rinse off the salt, drain the cucumbers, and squeeze out more excess moisture with paper towels.
Move to a bowl to cool.
Garnish with chives and serve.
