Cucumber Salad

Vinegar taste test

My grandmother makes a couple of cool and refreshing cucumber salads, one vinegar-based and one milk-based. I’m always amazed by the number of vinegars that seem to proliferate in the kitchen, so I pulled them together to perform my own mini taste-test on which ones go best with cucumber.

To my surprise, after letting them sit for a couple of hours, the winner was the plain white vinegar, the one my grandmother always used! The rice wine vinegar came in second, with the slightly sweet flavour seeming a bit incongruous to me. The other three all overpowered the cucumber, and even though I usually like balsamic vinegar (especially on tomatoes), it didn’t do it for me here. Perhaps I’m not cut out to be a food writer.

On to the actual recipe. I’m adapting mine from an old Usenet post in December 1997 from Doris Stowe Weber, since it’s the closest I can find to what I remember my grandmother doing.

Cucumber Salad (the Vinegar one)

2 to 3 cucumbers, sliced (peeled partially if you like)
1 small white onion
white vinegar
water
salt and pepper
ice cubes

Slice cucumbers into a bowl – make them lie flat so they take up as little room as possible. Slice the onion into thin rounds and put them on top. Add a little salt and pepper. Pour vinegar in to come half-way up the cucumber and onion slices. Add water just until everything is covered, and put 7 or 8 ice cubes on top.

Let sit for at least an hour. If it’s still too tart when you start eating it (the ice cubes should soften the strong onion taste), stir in a bit of sugar.

As long as you don’t need to add sugar, this is a zero-point Weight Watchers food, and has negligible calories per serving.