[Recipe] Cucumber Dishes - Cucumber&Tomato Salad + Cucumber Yogurt

So spring is almost upon us and it reminds me of my childhood. Growing up I was put in charge of preparing the "Iranian Salad" as we called it, a salad mainly made during the warm months when cucumber and tomato came into season. Cucumbers give such a refreshing and cooling taste, it's no wonder many people enjoy this vegetable during the summer months.

Nowadays when I go to the grocery store, I have an uncanny knack of buying more cucumber that tomatoes, so when I start chopping up the cucumbers I usually need another dish to use up the rest. This is when I usually decide to make cucumber  yogurt, which uses similar ingredients. It's a simple dish with many variations from Mediterranean to Indian culture. In fact, I would also recommend spinach yogurt as well as eggplant yogurt that I would make if I had excess of those vegetables. Since time is valuable to me, I usually combine the preparation of multiple dishes [this means reduced set up/preparation as well as cleanup time].

I've never had to measure how much of each ingredient I put into the dish, so I will do my best to explain the amounts of each.

Cucumber & Tomato Salad
[Salad]
- Cucumbers
- Tomatoes
- Onions
- Mint
- Salt&Pepper (to taste)

[Dressing]
- Red Wine Vinegar
- Lemon Juice
- Water

For this salad I would use an approximately 3:3:1 of Cucumbers:Tomatoes:Onions. This means that for every cup of cucumber I would also have 1 cup of tomatoes and 1/3 cup of onion. It's not very particular on the types of vegetables you use. I prefer sweet onions, but you can also use standard yellow onions, or vidalia onions - your choice. Just be sure to cut up the cucumbers and tomatoes into small cubes, about 1cm wide maximum. The onions should be minced, but you don't have to do this too finely as they only need to be smaller than the cucumbers and tomatoes.

After combining the above ingredients, all that's left is mint and salt/peppers. Mint is an herb that you can adjust depending on how strong you prefer it. If I were making a couple cups of salad, I would probably put in 1-2 tbsp of finely minced mint. It is important that you finely chop the mint so that large pieces don't get stuck in your teeth when you eat the salad. Without mint on hand I've also been known to substitute in cilantro or oregano. Salt&pepper to taste.

Lastly, pour the dressing over the salad. The ratio I work with is also about 3:3:1 of water:lemon juice:vinegar. It can be adjusted based on how acidic or how sour you prefer your salad. For a couple cups of salad I would probably make around 1/2 cup dressing, but I love sour foods so finishing up extra dressing left over without solid salad comes easy to me, so you may only want to make 1/3 cup.


Cucumber Yogurt
- Cucumbers
- Plain Yogurt
- Mint
- Salt&Pepper (to taste)

In this dish you also have cubed cucumber. Many people prefer the cubes to be smaller, or even shred the cucumber. If you decide to shred the cucumber you may also elect to strain excess liquid out so that the yogurt does not get watery (you can do this by pressing the shredded cucumber against a strainer)

For every cup of cut up cucumber, I would put in approximately 2 cups of plain yogurt. It all depends on how much cucumber you want in your yogurt. Then you would also add in finely minced mint, about 1 tbsp per cup of yogurt used (or more if you like the flavor). There are other related dishes that use other herbs such as dill or oregano, and feel free to experiment and substitute ingredients.

Add in salt&pepper to taste. I know pepper in yogurt sounds funny, but it's based on Iranian cuisine theory that the "hot" taste of pepper balances out the "cool" taste of cucumber.