During the hot summer days, we eat a lot of cucumbers. We love it the best as salad and I think Japanese cucumbers are best eaten as raw because of it’s texture & taste. The cucumber is not so thick as other varieties, the seed in the middle aren’t so big therefore you don’t need to deseed it.

Cucumber are said to cool and hydrate our body so we only eat these veggies during summertime. No cucumber from Autumn till next summer so we try to eat them as much as possible when it’s in season.

The above picture is one of my simple salad. The chicken are boiled and then sliced, tossed in with the cucumbers and chopped coriander. I dressed with extra virgin olive oil, some salt, few drops of soy sauce and a dash of white balsamic vinegar.

Points!

• The cucumber are cut in rangiri (乱切り) style. Chopping in rangiri gives the veggies equal amount of exposed surface to dress it evenly. How to rangiri: You slice the cucumber diagonally but every slice you cut it diagonally, you roll the cucumber about 90 degrees. You will then get these randomly looking pieces of cucumber.
• Boiling the chicken. I use the thigh this time but breast is also ok. Thigh have more fat so I used less olive oil while dressing. When cooking the meat, I put the meat in a pot with a slice of ginger and some Japanese green onion, (I usually cut the top hard green part off and freeze it to use it as a stock) water enough to cover the meat then turn the heat on. When the water starts to boil, lower the heat a bit and cook it for about 15min till the meat seems to hardens. Then I put the lid on the pot and let the chicken cook in it’s liquid. ( I’m cooking the chicken until it’s almost done and turn off the heat and let it cook all the way while the liquid is cooking down. This method makes the chicken soft and juicy.)
• Don’t discard the soup from boiling the chicken. When I prepare this dish, I alway make a simple chicken soup too.
• I play around with herbs and sauces depending what the main dish is going to be. Is it Japanese, Italian or Asian-Thai??