Japanese cucumbers - very good!

[french fries]

I bought 3 japanese cucumbers at the Farmers Market. Cut them in thin small pieces, layered it with salt (lots of salt) and a little black pepper for a few minutes, and tossed with a couple tbsp creme fraiche, and 3 cloves finely minced garlic. Sprinkled with sumac.

It was really good! I like the Japanese cucumbers a lot. They didn't render barely any water when I first put them in salt, which I usually do both for flavor and to render the water. I like cucumbers with a lot of salt. And this time, lots of garlic...

The sumac I just ordered from Penzeys... but it's almost red? I'm surprised: I went to Turkey a long time ago and I remember having sumac on salads there, I even bought some sumac from a market in Izmir... all the sumac I saw in Turkey was consistently dark purple.

Anyway it tasted great! /img/vbsmilies/smilies/smile.gif

 

[homemadecook]

Really you like japanese cucumber well it is the most common and good taste cucumber compare to English Cucumber. Its flavor is mild and sweet .

 

[charron]

how does the Japanese cuke compare for size/texture/seeds vs english? /img/vbsmilies/smilies/lookaround.gif

 

[french fries]

Assuming the English cucumber is the same as the French cucumber (I'm afraid I don't know the names of my cucumbers!) then the Japanese is much smaller. It can still be pretty long, but it's much thinner (smaller diameter). The texture is a bit firmer, less seeds and less watery. It has a subtly different taste.

HomeMakeCook: it's the most common where? Here in southern california I've never seen it in a supermarket. Only a few weeks ago someone started carrying them at the Farmer's Market. I'd never ever seen one in my life before!

In France we had one type of cucumber (smooth to the touch) and here the most common type is another type (shorter, bigger diameter, little pricks coming out of the skin).