MasterDecoy
Who took my beer?
my homecooked favorite is a chinese dish called pai huang gua, "smashed cucumber", its... *gasp* smashed cucumbers served in a sauce.
the basics is:
- take 2 chinese cucumber - kirby cucumber will do, english cucumber will disappoint you so right there its hard to do back home. chinese cucumber are crunchy and that's what were aiming for
- take the side of a meat cleaver and beat the ever loving **** out of it until its all cracked, chop it into bite size chunk. throw in a fancy looking bowl
- chop some garlic and pour it on top
- add salt, put aside
for the sauce, i go by taste, its should be salty (soy sauce will take care of that), vinegary with a hint of sweetness, its a mix of:
- heavy, rich soysauce (vh won't do for that),
- chinese brown rice vinegar (be careful, some are white vinegar with caramel colouring, and the brand i love i haven't been able to find outside china so that's little problem...) edit: don't even try with white vinegar...
- some sugar to balance out the vinegar. otherwise youre gonna have some weird faces at the table
- pepper
- a wee bit of olive oil to keep it all together
mix it all up together. let it sit for another 10 minutes and shazam, you got pai huang gua. its simple, its a great summer dish and if you do it right. let it sit too long and the salt will drain all the water out of the cucumber, making your sauce watery; don't want enough, and the taste of the cucumber won't mix with the sauce, creating an apartheid of taste - and we don't want that
i add a few personal touches depending how fancy im feeling and i have time:
- 'some' chopped cilantro on top add a really nice flavour to the mix
- add de-shelled, fried peanuts to the mix. this... this is the best.
- i occasionally add finely chopped red chillis, or barring that, some of the local chilli paste they have here, gives the whole concoction a kick
what it should look like, not mine.
presenting the cucumber like this works better with english cucumber since they don't smash very well. it looks better, but tastes bland as **** because the cucumber's juices won't mix with the sauce. that said, if you only have english cucumber, id present it that way, speaking from experience
took me a while to figure out my proportions and whanot, but now that i got it down, its the best. takes 10 minutes to do, and its very refreshing in the summer
edit: theres plenty of recipes online you can find if you want to know exact proportions, me, i rainman all my food
the basics is:
- take 2 chinese cucumber - kirby cucumber will do, english cucumber will disappoint you so right there its hard to do back home. chinese cucumber are crunchy and that's what were aiming for
- take the side of a meat cleaver and beat the ever loving **** out of it until its all cracked, chop it into bite size chunk. throw in a fancy looking bowl
- chop some garlic and pour it on top
- add salt, put aside
for the sauce, i go by taste, its should be salty (soy sauce will take care of that), vinegary with a hint of sweetness, its a mix of:
- heavy, rich soysauce (vh won't do for that),
- chinese brown rice vinegar (be careful, some are white vinegar with caramel colouring, and the brand i love i haven't been able to find outside china so that's little problem...) edit: don't even try with white vinegar...
- some sugar to balance out the vinegar. otherwise youre gonna have some weird faces at the table
- pepper
- a wee bit of olive oil to keep it all together
mix it all up together. let it sit for another 10 minutes and shazam, you got pai huang gua. its simple, its a great summer dish and if you do it right. let it sit too long and the salt will drain all the water out of the cucumber, making your sauce watery; don't want enough, and the taste of the cucumber won't mix with the sauce, creating an apartheid of taste - and we don't want that
i add a few personal touches depending how fancy im feeling and i have time:
- 'some' chopped cilantro on top add a really nice flavour to the mix
- add de-shelled, fried peanuts to the mix. this... this is the best.
- i occasionally add finely chopped red chillis, or barring that, some of the local chilli paste they have here, gives the whole concoction a kick
what it should look like, not mine.
presenting the cucumber like this works better with english cucumber since they don't smash very well. it looks better, but tastes bland as **** because the cucumber's juices won't mix with the sauce. that said, if you only have english cucumber, id present it that way, speaking from experience
took me a while to figure out my proportions and whanot, but now that i got it down, its the best. takes 10 minutes to do, and its very refreshing in the summer
edit: theres plenty of recipes online you can find if you want to know exact proportions, me, i rainman all my food
Last edited:
