The Vegetable:
Three cheers for summer fruit and vegetables! Amongst all those long awaited, sunshine laden beauties comes the cucumber; crisp, refreshing, and ideal for hot weather snacking.
Cucumbers are a creeping vine plant in the gourd family. There are three main varieties of cucumber; pickling, slicing, and burpless. My personal favourite for crunching into is the Lebanese, which is of the burpless, or seedless, type. They are smaller, with smoother skin, and possess a sweeter taste than that of the common cucumber.
The Dish:
Summer is ON! When the mercury rises and the days are long, I naturally turn to meal options that involve minimal extra time in front of the hot stovetop or oven. This Stone Fruit & Cucumber Salsa was born of that cooking avoidance, and my total love for all things salsa. The word salsa makes most folks think tomato, but it actually just means 'sauce'. Salsa can be any manner of mixtures, and a great way to embrace the season's bounty is to liven up easy meals with hugely flavourful salsas.
Fresh and mellow in flavour, Lebanese cucumber pairs perfectly with sweet stone fruit, and both are offset splendidly by a touch of spicy chilli and aromatic lemon verbena or coriander. Scoop it up with tortilla chips, heap atop tacos, serve over fish, eat with a spoon- it's simply ideal for sunny days and balmy nights (or bringing them back to life in the depths of winter).
The Ingredients:
2 Cucumbers
6 Stone Fruits- choose from apricot, nectarine, plum, peach
1 Capsicum
2-3 Radish
1 small Red Onion
1 small Jalapeño, seeds removed
4 tablespoons Lemon Verbena or Coriander
1 Lime or Lemon, juiced
1/4 teaspoon Sea Salt
Optional: 1 teaspoon Honey
The How To:
Pit your stone fruit combination, then dice fruit, cucumber, capsicum, and radish into small pieces. Mince red onion and jalapeño. Chop lemon verbena or coriander. Toss all these together in a bowl, along with lime or lemon juice and sea salt. Taste and adjust salt and honey to your liking. Refrigerate until you're ready to devour.
Tidbits:
-I tend to double the batch, because the leftover salsa is SO good for days to come, if kept refrigerated.
-This is one of those 'recipes' that I would loosely label as such. If you don't like radish, you can omit. Don't have capsicum? All good. Like it hot? Ramp up the chilli. Sweeter? Honey. Keep the basic elements, some form of citrus or vinegar, a touch of salt, drizzled through what is in your fridge drawer and it will be tasty.
