Cucumber salad beaten cucumbers. "Broken cucumbers": a savory Chinese snack

22.10.2020 Fish dishes

Broken cucumbers- one of the varieties of quick pickled cucumbers in the Chinese style. If you are tired of classic vegetable salads with cucumbers and want something unusual and hot with pepper, then feel free to cook them. To taste, Chinese cucumbers are as savory as they are, only the technology of their preparation is somewhat different.

Hearing for the first time about such a snack as Chinese crushed cucumbers, I was surprised. It turns out that the recipe for broken Chinese cucumbers really involves beating them, as a result of which they let out juice, as a result of which they pickle faster.

A salad of crushed cucumbers is prepared in a matter of minutes, however, in order for the cucumbers pickled in this way to marinate well, as during cooking, you will need to wait at least 30 minutes.

Ingredients:

  • Garlic - 3-4 cloves,
  • Cucumbers - 5-6 pcs.,
  • Soy sauce - 4 tablespoons
  • Chili pepper - 1/4 pod
  • Ground black pepper - a pinch
  • Olive or sesame oil - 2 tablespoons,
  • Apple cider or rice vinegar - 1 tbsp spoon.

Broken cucumbers - a step by step recipe with a photo

To prepare broken cucumbers, we take large fruits, with juicy pulp, in which seeds have already formed. The cucumbers should be washed. Then with a sharp knife, cut them lengthwise into halves.

Extract the pulp from the resulting cucumber boats. It is convenient to do this with the help of a coffee or teaspoon, passing it along the border of the cucumber pulp with its walls. Then, using the same spoon, remove the pulp. This is how the finished boats for cooking broken cucumbers should look like.

Place the cucumbers back up on a cutting board. Now the most interesting procedure is to beat them. In many recipes for broken cucumbers that I came across on the net, it is recommended to beat them off with the edge of a wide knife placed parallel to the cucumbers. I tried it - it's not convenient. Chop hammer doesn't work either. The best item you can use to beat off cucumbers is makogon or, in other words, a crush. Wooden, which used to pound mashed potatoes. A small wooden mortar pestle is also fine.

So, we hit the cucumbers with sharp and strong enough blows. Of course, you shouldn't overdo it here. We need to ensure that the boats crack only in 1-2 places, and the cucumber pulp itself becomes more juicy.

After this procedure, cut the broken cucumbers lengthwise into strips 1 cm thick.Cut each strip obliquely (at an angle) into 2 cm pieces.

Place the cucumbers in a bowl. Add minced garlic and finely chopped chili to these.

Sprinkle them with black pepper.

Pour soy sauce over them.

In order for the salad of broken cucumbers to turn out spicy, season it with vinegar. It is recommended to use rice vinegar for making broken cucumbers in Chinese, but since not every home has this product, use plain table vinegar or affordable apple cider vinegar. I used apple cider vinegar.

Pour vegetable oil over the cucumbers. Desirable sesame, after all, a Chinese dish, or olive, if not.

Mix all ingredients thoroughly.

Broken cucumbers in Chinese refrigerate for pickling, cover bowl with cling film. Transfer the finished spicy pickled cucumbers to a plate, sprinkle with sesame seeds, heated in a pan. Since this appetizer is considered Chinese, it is best served with rice, but such cucumbers with young potatoes, and especially with fried meat or, are no less tasty.

Broken cucumbers. Photo

The Chinese have a lot of respect for cucumbers and strive to add them to any dish they can. However, in an independent form, they are also extremely fond of. Chinese "Broken Cucumbers" is one of the simplest appetizers, which, for all its primitiveness, is wildly successful both at home and around the world. It is prepared extremely quickly and goes well with almost all dishes. And as a "snack" with a festive glass is just perfect.

The right cucumbers and the way they are processed

To make you happy with “Broken Cucumbers” in Chinese, you first need to correctly approach the choice of vegetables. Forget the thorny sturdy babies, you need long-fruited cucumbers.

Now about their processing. The name "Broken Cucumbers" already contains a hint: the vegetable needs to be beaten well. Two approaches are possible here. According to the first version, it is enough to peel the whole cucumbers with a rolling pin or a wooden hammer. But the second version is closer to us. It is no secret that a long vegetable has rather large seeds. And in a snack, they will definitely be superfluous. So it is better to cut the cucumber lengthwise and scrape out the "insides" with a knife, as is done with pumpkin and melon. After the vegetable is put down with a cut and processed with a tool until cracking (but not to a mushy state!). Beating is necessary for better impregnation of vegetables with marinade.

Further, the workpiece is coarsely cut obliquely, salted and left for ten minutes. The released juice is drained (some cooks even advise to squeeze it out), and "Broken Cucumbers" are seasoned with pre-prepared sauce. Apart from him and the vegetable itself, nothing else is included in the original appetizer.

"Broken cucumbers": recipe for dressing number 1

Pay attention to offers several refueling options. For the first, you need to combine black vinegar in the volume of three tablespoons and add two tablespoons of vegetable oil to them. Preference should be given to peanut. Then two tablespoons of liquid natural honey and one of sesame oil are introduced. To make the "Broken Cucumbers" spicy, four crushed garlic and dried chili are added to the marinade. It is taken at the discretion of the cook. After refueling, the snack is kept in the refrigerator for at least a quarter of an hour.

Gas station number 2

With her, "Broken Cucumbers" become more accessible - nothing exotic is included in the sauce. It is required to combine equal amounts of vodka, soy sauce, vinegar and vegetable oil. To preserve authenticity, it is still recommended to take sesame oil (it will be a little worse with olive oil, and with sunflower it will be tasty, but primitive). It is advisable to buy rice vinegar; if not possible, replace it with lemon juice.

Third version

In this dressing, the differences from recipe No. 1 are small, but significant. With it you will get completely different "Broken Cucumbers". The recipe includes oyster and soy sauces with black (apple cider) vinegar taken on a spoon. Garlic for such a volume requires three slices, half a spoonful of sesame oil will go. Plus chili, sugar and salt as you like.

Alternative cooking method

If all the previous ones meant portioned cooking, then this option requires almost a kilogram of cucumbers. They are cut large; in parallel, a good bunch of dill and eight garlic cloves are chopped as finely as possible. For dressing, mix half a glass of soy sauce, a spoonful of sugar, two - vegetable oil, three - apple cider vinegar and half a spoonful of ground red pepper. Black is to taste, as is salt. All this is placed in a tight bag, shaken well and only after that it is beaten off with a rolling pin. An hour of cooling - and the "Broken Cucumbers" are ready.

Chinese salad

It is based on cucumbers, beaten according to traditional rules. Squeezed out of the juice, they are placed in a salad bowl and supplemented with chopped garlic and chopped cilantro, rather coarsely. Light soybean oil and black rice vinegar are used in the dressing - just a spoonful. The composition is supplemented with half a spoonful of hot oil and sugar (a little). Fried cashews are added to the salad, the marinade is poured in - and you can try almost immediately. This salad is offered by the "Chinese gramota" restaurant. We can say that he is very popular there. However, it is not at all necessary to visit public catering, the salad is quite accessible for one-hand preparation.

Young cucumbers are best suited for appetizing "broken" cucumbers, but grown cucumbers can also be used (if they are already too large with large seeds, then it is advisable to cut the cucumbers lengthwise and peel the seeds with a spoon).

Be sure to wash the cucumbers, cut off the ends.


Put each cucumber on a board and press very hard on it with the wide side of the knife. At the same time, the cucumber should crack. Such a simple technique will allow the cucumbers to pickle very quickly.



Cut the cucumbers into convenient chunks. You can cut each cucumber lengthwise and cut obliquely.



Place the chopped cucumbers in a bowl, add salt and rice vinegar. If there is no rice vinegar, then you can take apple cider vinegar, but in smaller quantities (no more than 1 tablespoon).

Leave the cucumbers to brew for 15 minutes.



Meanwhile, fry the sesame seeds in a pan. To do this, just put the sesame seeds in a cold frying pan and hold on low heat for 2-3 minutes until the seeds begin to fry and change color (they become golden).

Pour sesame seeds into a bowl, do not leave in a pan, otherwise they will overcook and will taste bitter.



Finely chop the chives (it is better to chop them with a knife than squeeze them through a press) and herbs (you can also take green onions). If you are a lover of spicy dishes, then take a red hot pepper and chop it with a knife too.



Squeeze the cucumbers with your hands or fold them onto a sieve to remove excess moisture and vinegar.

Add garlic, herbs, soy sauce, sugar, sesame seeds and sesame oil. If you do not have such an oil, then an odorless vegetable oil will do.


Crushed cucumber salad- appetizer salad with original preparation. The dish belongs to Chinese cuisine. Cucumbers are very tasty, spicy and unusual. Perfectly serve this dish with rice, boiled potatoes. Cucumbers "beat" so that they are better saturated with a fragrant dressing. I added roasted peanuts to the cucumbers, the original recipe uses sesame seeds.

Ingredients

To prepare a salad from broken cucumbers you will need:

garlic - 2 cloves;

young cucumbers - 4 pcs.;

chili pepper - 1/4 pcs.;

coarse salt - 0.5 tsp;

sugar - 0.5 tsp;

coriander, black freshly ground pepper, paprika - 1/4 tsp each;

rice vinegar (or any - 6%) - 1-2 tbsp. l .;

soy sauce - 2 tbsp. l .;

sesame oil (or any refined) - 1 tbsp. l .;

roasted peanuts (or sesame seeds) - 2 tbsp. l.

Cooking steps

Next, hit each half of the cucumber several times with the wide side of a knife or a rolling pin until it crunches, the cucumber should, as it were, burst. Just do it without fanaticism!

Cut the broken cucumbers diagonally into pieces.

Drain the released liquid from the cucumbers, add chopped garlic and finely chopped chili to them.

Pour in soy sauce and sesame oil, add paprika, coriander, black pepper, chopped peanuts and a pinch of sugar.

Enjoy your meal!

Cucumbers remain the most popular vegetables on the table for most people. They can be eaten fresh, prepared for future use in various ways, and used in salads.

Let's make a salad of crushed cucumbers with cilantro. In Asian countries, before preparing cucumber salad, it is customary to break the fruits with a knife laid flat on top. Broken cucumbers are better saturated with spices and the taste of the salad is richer.

We will need:

  • Cucumbers, preferably long or medium-sized fruits: 0.5-0.6 kg;
  • Carrots - 90 g;
  • Cilantro and (or) green onions, parsley: 20 g;
  • Garlic: 3-4 cloves;
  • Spices - 2 tsp (pepper, ground, black and red hot, coriander, ginger);
  • Salt to taste;
  • Vinegar (9%): 20-30 ml;
  • Vegetable oil - 50 ml;
  • Soy: 20-30 ml;
  • Sugar - 20 g.

How to cook:

1. Cucumbers are washed and trimmed.

2. On each cucumber they put a knife blade flat and beat it half-heartedly. The cucumber should burst, but not scatter into small pieces.

3. After that, the cucumbers are cut into 3-4 cm pieces.

3. Carrots are grated. To do this, you need a special grater, one on which vegetables for Korean salads are rubbed. If it is not there, then the carrots are cut with a knife into the thinnest possible strips. Chop the onion finely. Instead of or together with onions, you can take several sprigs of cilantro, if there are lovers of this spicy herb in the family.

4. Do the same with garlic as with cucumbers. Crush the peeled cloves with a knife and chop them into pieces.

5. Prepare a dressing from oil, spices, vinegar, sugar and soy.

6. Transfer vegetables to a bowl and pour over the dressing. Salt is added if necessary. Leave the cucumber salad for about one hour.

The salad goes well with meat and potato dishes.

Optionally, add some sesame seeds to the crushed cucumber salad.