Week 17: Spiced Cucumber

The book: Riverford Farm Cook Book

The recipe: p153, "Spiced Cucumber"

Being middle-class, reasonably adventurous and immeasurably lazy, I'd been meaning to sign up for one of those organic veg box schemes for a while, so when a charming Lucía Pérez lookalike turned up on my doorstep and extolled the virtues of Riverford to me, I was easily persuaded. It's been a good investment - yes, it's a bit wanky and more expensive than supermarket produce, but it's also better (I never realised that courgettes could actually taste of something), it makes us eat more healthily, and it's led to some entertaining moments of "what actually is this vegetable and what am I supposed to do with it?".

That's where the Riverford Farm Cook Book, a "free" gift with my subscription, comes in. It's packed with veggie recipes - some of which I've even used - but also plenty of photos, essays on food growing and general explanations of how to prepare and use the various fruit and veg that Riverford produces on its various farms in the UK and (whisper it quietly) further afield. Which goes some way to explaining why the random number generator had such trouble settling on something actually usable this week. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: *clicks "Generate" button*
Sam: That's just a picture of some blackberries.
Me: *clicks "Generate" button*
Sam: That's just a description of what Jerusalem artichokes are.
Me: *clicks "Generate" button*
Sam: That's just a courgette.
Me: *clicks "Generate" button*
Sam: That's just a description of some herbs.
Me: *clicks "Generate" button*
Sam: That's just a list of ideas of things to do with Brussels sprouts.

...and so on. Anyway, we got to a page with an actual recipe in the end, though (spoiler alert) I'd soon be wishing we hadn't. "Spiced Cucumber" may not be the most obvious combination of words, but it at least sounded like it could be ploughing the same furrow as the Chinese "salad" from a couple of months back. Sadly, I don't think I'm giving too much away by saying that it... wasn't.

The prep: With a bountiful supply of rice vinegar, caster sugar, sesame oil, groundnut oil, dried red chillies and salt in my cupboards (not a euphemism) (or if so, a remarkably contrived one), all I have to buy is the cucumbers. The recipe calls for "3 small or 2 large"; Lewisham Market can give me "5 stonking for £1". Sorted.

The making: The cucumbers are cut lengthways into quarters, deseeded, then sliced into 2cm pieces before being covered with no less than four teaspoons of salt.

Unlike in many of Madhur's recipes, though, it does serve a purpose: the bowl is left to stand for several hours, during which time the salt draws much of the water out of the cucumber. The magic of nature, there.

Salty water duly discarded, the cucumber is combined with a generous lug of Chinese rice vinegar and some caster sugar. Next, sesame oil and oil oil is heated in a small saucepan and several chopped and deseeded dried red chillies are sizzled for the briefest of moments. The recipe warns me to take care or else they might burn; they do get a bit blacker than they ought to, but not to the extent that I need to have a second go. I'm not quite sure why we're using dried chillies, though, when deseeding fresh ones is much easier and the damn things would be far less likely to burn instantly on contact with hot oil. Oh well.

Anyway, the chilli-infused oil is poured over the cucumber/vinegar/sugar mix and the whole thing is stirred together to attractive effect:

This goldfish bowl of yums is then left to stand "for at least 6 hours or overnight in the fridge". I go for the latter, if only because this has taken hours already and I'm not staying up until the middle of the night just to eat some marinated cucumber.

The eating: OK, let's get one thing straight here: the recipe does mention that "the longer you leave it the hotter the chilli flavour becomes". That's all well and good. But I haven't even used the maximum number of "according to taste" chillies here, and the thing is still prohibitively hot. The problem is that's all it tastes of. Cucumber and hot. There's a hint of interesting sweetness from the sesame oil, but otherwise it's just the gloopy viscosity of one of the world's less interesting vegetables paired with the flat dullness of dried chilli, and I don't see how less time in the fridge (or less chilli) could improve it in any way.

I give it a second chance a few minutes later, just in case my initial impression was a little hasty and my tastebuds needed time to get used to the concept, but no: still awful.

Aaaaand into the bin it goes.

They know what's what.

By this point, you might be wondering what the intent behind a dish like this could possibly be. The suggestion in the Riverford book proudly reads thus: "Serve as an accompaniment, or as a canapé with cocktail sticks for spearing the pieces." Seriously. If you served me this as a canapé, I'd turn on my heel and leave immediately. After spearing you in the eye with a cocktail stick. And burning your house down, just to be on the safe side.

I cannot stress how much this recipe upsets me. It truly is a terrible, terrible creation.

One-word verdict: Apocalyptic.