No matter where you are in the world, late summer likely brings with it an abundance of ripe tomatoes and tender cucumbers. That’s probably why some variation of this salad exists all over Eurasia and Africa. Add some sumac and green peppers and it’s a Turkish Çoban Salatası, add a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkle of dill and you’ll have a Russian cucumber and tomato salad (Салат с огурцами и помидорами), or spice it up with some cumin and mint for an Indian Kachumber.
With only a handful of ingredients, it may sound kind of boring, but with a mix of crisp and crunchy textures; and sweet, sour and savory tastes, this salad changes with a every bite. The key is to use tomatoes that were vine ripened to their peak sweetness and cucumbers that are young and tender.
Personally, I like using either Lebanese cucumbers or Japanese cucumbers because they tend to have less seeds, with a tender skin that doesn’t need to be peeled. If you can’t find either kind in your area, you can use English (a.k.a. hothouse) cucumbers, but you’ll want to remove the seeds with a spoon to keep the salad from getting watery.
I love the crisp texture and natural sweetness of raw onions, but they contain volatile sulfur compounds, which is the reason they have a potent flavor that can make you tear up. To tame them, I like to soak raw onions in a couple changes of water overnight. If you can’t wait that long, add a teaspoon of baking soda to the water. This helps neutralize the sulfur compounds, taking the edge off the onions in about an hour.
The salad may look rustic because of the chunky vegetables, but there’s a good reason for cutting them into chunks rather than slices. If you slice them thinly, the vegetables tend to weep a lot of liquid quickly, which will make your salad watery before you have a chance to eat it.
Units
Ingredients
- 125 grams red onion (~1/2 medium onion)
- 250 grams cucumber (~3 small cucumbers)
- 300 grams tomatoes (~3 tomatoes)
- 15 grams parsley (~1 handful)
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 ¼ teaspoons salt
Instructions
- As far as a day in advance, cut the onion into bite-size squares. Soak them in a bowl of water in the refrigerator for up to a day, changing the water a few times in between.
- When you're ready to make the salad, drain and dry the onions with paper towels.
- Chop the cucumbers and tomatoes into bite size pieces and add them into a bowl along with the onions, parsley, lemon juice and salt.
- Toss to distribute everything evenly and serve immediately.
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Simba, depending on the variety of cucumbers they can have large tough seeds that are better to remove some cucumbers can also have large amounts of water around the seeds and so depending on how you’re going to use them you may need to remove this area. As for tomatoes, I almost never remove the seeds. The usual reasons for removing the seeds is because they also contain a lot of water, and the seeds can be slightly bitter. The problem is the membrane around the seed contains a ton of glutamic acids, which is what gives tomatoes their umami taste. If you remove the seeds, you lose the umami. I hope that helps.
Ari says
My mother made this a lot for me when I was younger and I still love it just as much today! Excellent recipe. 🙂
Ann says
My family makes this salad a lot too, the only difference is we add a little olive oil. Delicious!
spikethebike says
just needs a little feta!
chive says
Thank you so much for the tip about taking the edge off the red onions (Spanish onions in Australia)! I love these things but they ae volatile 🙂
bizdouglas says
Love your sight! Another similar way to take the edge off onions, used in Mediterranean(in salads) and Latin American(salads and on top of yucca) cuisines, and maybe others I don’t know about, that works a lot faster is to soak in a combo of vinegar and water. In only a half hour it sort of lightly pickles them. It gives them a really great flavor.
aerows says
Oh, I hadn’t though of adding radishes. I’ll bet that is delicious! Instead of parsley, I add dill and some garlic.
anoymous says
what if i don’t have enough time to soak the onion into water in refrigerator? Can i straight away cut the onion and mixed it with other ingredients? Will it affect the outcome?
Marc Matsumoto says
Please read the post for the answer to your question.