My New Toy

I bought a swiss peeler with julienne feature about a month ago thinking I might be able to use it to make nice little orange zest strips ready to be candied without the need to slice. Alas, an orange is too round to do the job as intended, but I can’t buy something and then not think of a way to use it, so...

My original plan was to recreate a yummy Moroccan carrot salad with cumin that L and I made when I was Down South in July, this time with noodle-like carrot strips using the new peeler (back in July, we just sliced the carrots on my cheapo mandoline). Alas, I came home from class famished one day last week and took the carrots I was planning to use and made a quick carrot-ginger soup with them.

Then I thought... of course. Cucumber!

The first time I tried it, I did a quick cucumber "noodle" with pickled ginger salad that was wonderfully refreshing on an Indian Global Warming Summer day when the temperature was above 90F with humidity to match.

On Sunday I noodled my cucumber (ooh, that sounds naughty!) using the julienne peeler to do a variation on one of my favorite guilty pleasures: cold sesame noodles. And hey, celiac kids (you know who you are!), this version is gluten-free, if you use a gluten-free soy sauce (I didn’t).

It’s easy, it’s quick, it’s perfect on a hot day (ugh... where is winter??) and I think I may prefer my healthier version to the cold sesame noodles from the local Chinese take-out.

The peeler, by the way, was about $5 from Bed Bath and Bupkis, though I also had a 20% coupon. It’s not a big investment and I’m guessing it would also make awesome hash browns (by the way, I don’t claim to be the first to think of doing this, but since I haven’t seen it anywhere else, not that I’ve looked, I’m going to proceed as if I am sharing something new).
Oh yeah... you do need a seedless cucumber (aka hothouse or English). Trim the ends. Then, using firm and steady pressure, start at one end and pull peeler down the length of the vegetable, following its curvature. Separate the "noodles":

I left my cucumber unpeeled because hey, that’s why I paid extra for a thin-skinned hothouse variety (that and the higher yield and better flavor). I also think it looks more attractive.

Once you get down to the innards, flip the cucumber over and repeat on that side until once again you are down to the innards. At that point, I kept noodling but picked out the middle pieces which were too watery to hold together well.

I put the noodles in a container with two ice cubes on top, covered it and put it in the fridge since I wouldn’t be using them for several hours. Why the ice cubes? I think it keeps them hydrated in a drip irrigation kinda way without getting waterlogged, but that’s just my crazy idea.

As for the innards that were too watery or the bits that couldn’t be noodled, I ate them, then and there, with a little pickled ginger. Yum.

Later that night, I whisked up a very quick sauce of organic peanut butter, tamari (which you’d have to nix to keep the whole dish gluten-free if that was your goal), chilli oil, chopped scallions and just a touch of sesame oil. I drained the noodles, poured the sauce over them and tossed. And as one cannot live by cucumber noodles alone, I added a couple Trader Joe’s Salmon Patties and a short grain Korean brown rice that I sprinkled with fukikake, just ‘cause I like it. Don’t ask me for more info about the rice. I bought it at a Korean grocery store and there’s no English on the packaging.

Et voila:

I was pleased (and sated) by the results, but of course one’s cooking can only really be judged by a truly objective individual:

Yes, my fuzzy sous-chef ate the scraps and cried until I gave him a little more, salmon being his absolute favorite thing to eat. Next to deer poop, of course.