I Tried A Chef's Trick To Prevent Watery Cucumbers, And My Salads And Sandwiches Have Never Been Better

Draining cucumber on right, salad on leftWater and antioxidant-rich cucumbers (which, it turns out, are technically classed as a fruit) may help to manage everything from your blood pressure to your cholesterol. But if they ruin my otherwise-perfect sandwich, well, I can’t help but wonder if they’re worth it. Previously, I swore by a crude way of ensuring their crunch: I simply removed the watery centres entirely for recipes like my never-soggy salad.Wasteful, I know, but it worked (Gordon Ramsay and Yotam Ottolenghi use the same trick). Nonetheless, I was keen to see whether a lower-water approach could be as effective.And since trying a chef-recommended salting method, I’m pleased to announce that not only does it work just as well, but it makes the produce taste even more delicious. Salting cucumber on the left: water draining out of them on the rightSalt cucumbers before putting them in a salad or sandwich Serious Eats’ senior culinary editor Leah Colins wrote, “When I make cucumber dips, I always pre-salt cucumbers to draw out moisture before stirring into the dip, so the excess moisture doesn’t thin the dip as it leaches out over time.” It removes the liquid through a process called osmosis.Slate writes that if you skip this step, “a puddle of near-flavourless liquid will form quickly at the bottom of your salad bowl, your dip or soup will separate like curdled mayonnaise.” Nigella Lawson macerates her sweet and sour cucumber salad in salt to release its moisture (though she opts to keep this in for her specific recipe).So, I thought I’d try it for a basic red onion and cucumber salad this week ― one I planned to keep int he fridge for a couple of days and eat with multiple meals. I let my sliced cucumber sit in a hefty pinch of salt for 10 minutes before rinsing it off in a colander and letting it dry on a paper towel-covered plate (you can also pat the salt off, but I found this was easier for my smaller chunks). The completed salad 2 days inI’m never going back I’m three days into my salad, and I have yet to face the gross cucumber water-feta sludge I’m usually left with at this point when I don’t core my cucumbers.That’s pretty great going, and it means I skip the fiddly (and wasteful) step of stripping the fruit of its innards. In other words, I’m never going back.Related...I Make This Fibre-Rich, Never-Soggy Salad Every SummerThis Fruit Salad Recipe Is So Good, My Friends Make Me Bring It To Every BBQThe Counterintuitive Secret I Swear By For Deli-Level Pasta Salad

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