I love cucumbers. I eat them quite a lot especially in summer. My favorite variety of cucumbers is Japanese cucumbers. When I saw organic Japanese cucumbers at a farmers market, I had to get some.
Japanese cucumbers are skinny and long. They are very crunchy and not watery like big American cucumbers. The seeds of Japanese cucumbers are very small and easier to eat. The skin of Japanese cucumbers could be bumpy. You can fine these cucumbers at a Japanese supermarket year around but their season is summer.
One of the most popular ways to eat cucumbers is sunomono (酢の物). A lot of Japanese restaurants in the US offer sunomono. Sunomono literally means “something with vinegar.” This refreshing dish is cucumber salad with vinegar base sauce. It can be vegan if you don’t add any seafood but many Japanese restaurants serve this dish with octopus or shrimp. Today, I’ll make sunomono with wakame (seaweed). If you can’t find Japanese cucumber, Persian cucumber or English cucumber will work fine. I’ll show you the step-by-step instructions but the shorter version of the recipe and the listing of the ingredients are available at the bottom of this post.
- Soak wakame (seaweed) in water. I am using fresh one today but you can use dry one. Fresh one is coated with salt. You’ll need to rinse off salt first then soak wakame in water for 5 minutes.
After a few minutes, wakame will expand.
2. Cut wakame into bite-size (1 inch or less)
3. Peel skin of cucumber if you like. You can leave the skin on or make stripes with a peeler like this.
4. Slice cucumber thinly with a mandolin slicer.
If you make stripes on the skin. Sliced cumbers look pretty. 🙂
5. Sprinkle salt on cucumbers and leave for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, you’ll see water coming out of cucumbers. Squeeze water out and discard the water.
6. Combine the sauce ingredients and mix well.
7. Mix cucumber and wakame, pour the sauce mix and mix well. I used coconut sugar but you can use any sugar of your choice.
It’s kind of sour but also slightly sweet. It’s very refreshing and a perfect dish for a hot summer.
We usually eat it as a side dish but you can eat it as your main dish if you love cucumbers like me!
- 1 cucumber
- .5 oz fresh wakame (or 1 tablespoon dried wakame)
- *Sauce
- 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
- 1 teaspoon soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon coconut sugar (or sugar of your choice)
- Soak wakame (seaweed) in water
- Cut wakame into bite-size (1 inch or less)
- Peel skin of cucumber if you like. You can leave the skin on or make stripes with a peeler.
- Slice cucumber thinly with a mandolin slicer.
- Sprinkle salt on cucumbers and leave for 15 minutes.
- After 15 minutes, squeeze water out and discard the water.
- Combine the sauce ingredients and mix well.
- Mix cucumber and wakame, pour the sauce mix and mix well.
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