I have to confess that I faced this week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe with trepidation. Crunchy ginger-pickled cucumbers is something that, left to my own devices, I would never have made. Cucumber doesn't rank up there as one of my favourite vegetables in the first place - pickling them sounded even worse. However, it was a popular selection with the punters, so crunchy ginger-pickled cucumbers it is as first cab off the rank for FFwD for July.
"Cucumbers" is a misnomer, as the recipe only calls for one cucumber, cut into pieces. I used a seeded cucumber, so I had to scoop out the seeds. It seemed that half the cucumber was gone after that.
Instead of red pepper flakes, I chopped up a half a dried chilli, figuring that the flavour is there for a reason. Otherwise, I made the recipe as directed, even chilling the cucumbers overnight.
I served these cucumbers with a couple of other Dorie recipes for the month, the salmon and the barley pilaf, as it is definitely not picnic weather here, so I could not take up Dorie's suggestion of taking the salad to a picnic.
Verdict - these cucumbers tasted fine, but were nothing special. They tasted best after a couple of days, even though Dorie says to eat them within a day for crispiness. The cucumber was still pretty crisp at the three day mark (when I finished off the last of mine). If you are keen to eat cucumber salad, this may be for you, but it won't be appearing again at my place.
To see what the other FFwD members thought, visit the LYL section of the FFwD website.
