I had a really tasty cucumber and tomato salad over the weekend. The dressing was very, very light and it had clearly been marinated in it for some time. The only flavors I could discern were red wine vinegar and sugar. I’m not sure if there was oil involved but I’m fairly sure there were little to no herbs/spices, like you’d get say in a Penzey’s italian dressing mix.
Does anyone know of a similar recipe?
I add in red onion and feta cheese with a red wine vinagrette.
Not sure if it’s the same thing, but cukes and Seasoned Rice Vinegar are a wonderful, wonderful thing. I do cukes and red onion and bell pepper with the vinegar and a tiny bit of oil, let it sit for a bit to marinate, and it’s delicious.
But if you’re looking for something red wine vinegar based but with some sweetness…hmm, not sure I’ve had anything like that. Like Lamar Mundane said, I do a Greek salad with cukes, tomatoes, feta, and Greek olives (and sometimes throw in bell pepper and red onion) with red wine vinegar, olive oil, and oregano, but there’s no sweet element there.
The simplest tomato-cucumber salad, and one of the best, is just the veggies (maybe add onion, too) with a sour cream dressing. Nothing else needed; just cukes, tomatoes, onions, and sour cream. If you want to go really wild, you can add a bit of dill or other mild herbs.
Slice cukes. Slice maters. Put them in a bowl and nearly cover them with cider vinegar mixed with soy sauce to taste. Leave them in the fridge for a few hours. Anyway, that’s how my mom does it.
Whatever you do, fight the urge to marinate them in balsalmic vinegar. The cukes will come out grayish and drab. Balsalmic would be okay as a drizzle though, but personally I’m about sick of balsalmic. Seems like you can’t find a vegetable or salad recipe these days without someone splashing it with the stuff.
What proportion of cider vinegar to soy sauce?
This is also super tasty (and I sometimes make it) but not what I’d had at the restaurant.
Ah HA! That’s it! I guess I just assumed it was red wine vinegar with sugar in it, but seasoned rice vinegar is spot on. I’ve had it so infrequently that my brain didn’t process it. What’s the ratio of vinegar to oil - also, olive or canola or something else?
Oh yay! I had to say that was my first through when I read “cukes” and “vinegar” and “sweet”. But the red wine vinegar threw me off.
Ratio wise, heck, it’s more vinegar than oil. In fact, I’ve made it totally without oil sometimes. Basically I slice up the veggies, throw 'em in a bowl, and pour a little rice wine vinegar over them, taste, put more on, rinse & repeat until I like it. Then I finish with a tiny bit of olive oil, maybe a teaspoon or less for one big bowl. You basically only need it to carry the flavor a little bit, it’s not like a traditional vinaigrette.
It’s also really, really good with a touch of sesame oil in it. For flavor, not to replace the olive oil.
This is one of my favorite salads to make and to eat.
I use plain white vinegar though, and sometimes I do add a pinch of sugar to counteract the acidity of the vinegar a little bit.
So mine is diced fresh cukes, chunk-sliced fresh tomatoes, seasoned with salt and pepper, a splash of olive oil, about 1-2 cups of vinegar depending on how big the salad is, 1/2 teaspoon fresh garlic and very finely minced red onion, about a half cup of that. A pinch of sugar and stir. Sometimes I’ll chop up a couple large basil leaves and throw it in there too.
Its damn good though.
i know what i’m making this weekend now.
When I make them I put olive oil, salt, pepper and a little bit of squeezed lemon. I don’t think vinegar works too well, personally.
Also add in some onions, chopped parsley and crumbled feta in the mix.
However it tastes best to you. Probably at least double vinegar to soy sauce.
Thank you so much. I’m going to make a big batch tonight (and a small batch of cider vinegar and soy sauce, thanks filling_pages!). Athena, roughly how long are you leaving them to soak/marinate? 5-10 minutes or more like an hour?
All of these slightly different recipes sound excellent too. I love food threads.
Typically the half-life of that salad in my house is about 3 minutes. But if you have time to let it marinate, it gets better. Really, it’s one of those things you can eat anywhere from right away to the next day. It changes, but it’s good at any stage.
And, for the record, if you’re into this, you might as well start looking into quick pickling as well. The salad is sorta halfway to a quick pickle, so you might like to expand on it. You can make some mighty yummy pickles in very little time that go great as a side dish with almost anything. Just Google Quick Pickling for a gazillion recipes. I’ve done radishes and cauliflower and carrots and daikon radish and all sorts of things. Yummy on sandwiches, yummy and healthy as snacks, versatile, good use of cheap summer produce.
I get that. I’ll make an extra big batch then…in the hopes I get to taste it in its varying stages.
Quick pickling sounds like fun, not too instrument intensive either (always my previus worry with canning/pickling/preserving). I’ve always thought that store bought pickles were never “crisp” enough either - sounds like this solves that problem. I’ll give it a go early next week, since we’re out of town (again) this weekend.
Stupid question: where the heck to I buy mason jars?
Most grocery stores will have a small corner of one aisle for canning supplies. You’ll have to look close to find it, but it’s there.
Walmart carries them, as well as some hardware stores (general hardware, not the big box kind). Also, check craigslist or freecycle - often people will have some they are recycling - then you just have to buy the new lids or seals.
You don’t need them. You can certainly use them if you want, but I pretty much do all my quick pickles in tupperware.
Yaknow, I overheard a guy asking for them at the (very well stocked) grocery store a couple weeks ago and decided to follow him to the manager - who was certain they had none. 
Otherwise I totally woulda been prepared already!
Oooo, craigslist. I’ll try there, then the hardware store.
ETA: Athena, I lack tupperware. I have pyrex, but not enough to make much. I figure mason jars will be cheap.
Pfft, tupperware, mason jars…that’s what all the empty plastic margarine/butter tubs are for!
Also wanted to add that the last few times I’ve made this, I had a lot of leftover vinegar with bits of cukes, maters, onions, garlic, etc floating around in it…which promptly went into the blender with the addition of about a cup of olive oil, puree and…yummy salad dressing!