Cucumber and Tomato Salad

Name: Cucumber and Tomato Salad with Basil and Olive Oil
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 15 min
Cuisine: Bulgarian cuisine
Ingredients: Young green cucumbers 0.5 kg; Ripe tomatoes 0.5 kg; Green basil 1 bunch; Olive oil 3 tbsp; Balsamic vinegar 1 tsp; Oregano 0.5 tsp; Salt to taste; Cherry tomatoes, herbs, onion, hot pepper, olives for garnish

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15 mins

The start of summer is traditionally the season of real abundance of young vegetables grown in open ground. It would be a sin not to make a delicious salad of cucumbers and tomatoes right away, with fresh herbs and a spicy, aromatic dressing. I still remember from early childhood a huge bowl of fresh vegetable salad, made from produce that had been picked in the garden just 5 minutes earlier.

Salad is an amazing dish: usually a cold mix of various vegetables, fruit, herbs, mushrooms and so on. As a rule, a salad needs a dressing. The ideal dressing for most vegetable mixes is vegetable oil. Still, it is not so easy to give up the taste of mayonnaise, we love this sauce too much.

Most recipes say that herbs, such as dill, parsley and green onion, are often among the ingredients. That is a somewhat primitive approach, because a cucumber and tomato salad, like all vegetable and even meat salads, must (!) include fresh herbs. Herbs of all kinds, by the way, are available all year round, even out of season. You only have to learn a simple way of storing fresh herbs in the fridge so that they don’t wilt right after you buy them.

In the Balkans a salad of vegetables cut into large pieces, rounds or slices, is very popular. The salad is usually dressed with salt, wine vinegar and vegetable oil, and contains fresh herbs. The Bulgarian name for this kind of appetizer is redena salata, which roughly means “arranged” and “in order”. As a rule, the coarsely cut vegetables are laid out on a flat plate, sprinkled with vinegar and vegetable oil, and topped with parsley. Any Bulgarian pepper salad, as a rule, is simple and always very tasty.

Often the way a cucumber and tomato salad is arranged resembles the Italian Caprese salad — an amazing interweaving of scarlet tomatoes, green basil and white mozzarella. Don’t chase fashion by trying to make a symbolic salad that means something or looks like something. Make a tasty, handsome cucumber and tomato salad with green basil and olive oil. See for yourself that it is divine!

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Ingredients

4 servings

Young green cucumbers 0.5 kg
Ripe tomatoes 0.5 kg
Green basil 1 bunch
Olive oil 3 tbsp
Balsamic vinegar 1 tsp
Oregano 0.5 tsp
Salt to taste
Cherry tomatoes, herbs, onion, hot pepper, olives for garnish

Step-by-step recipe

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Preparing the vegetables

If you grow vegetables yourself in your garden, you are a lucky person, and your cucumber and tomato salad will be the best of all. If you live in a city, go to the market and buy the very best vegetables. Fresh, just from the bed, young and bright green cucumbers. Aromatic and slightly prickly, with the remains of the flower at one end. Buy small tomatoes that smell of the tomato vine. The salad will look amazing if the tomatoes are of different colors. Buy a big bunch of real green basil, not a foul-smelling hybrid with a touch of mint or lemon.
Wash all the vegetables under running water and dry them. Cut the tips off the cucumbers, up to where the seeds begin. Young cucumbers don’t need peeling, but make sure they are not bitter. Remove the stem from the tomatoes. Pull all the leaves off the basil sprigs.
Slice the vegetables onto separate plates so that they are easy to combine into the finished salad. Cut the cucumbers into rounds about 5 mm thick, either across or on the diagonal. Cut the tomatoes across, discarding the end pieces. The size and thickness of the slices are fairly arbitrary, but it is better if all the pieces are about the same size.

How to arrange the salad attractively

This amount of vegetables makes 4 portions of appetizer. If you like, you can arrange the salad in individual bowls, or lay it out on a large serving platter and bring it to the table. For a feast, by the way, this option is preferable.
Arrange the vegetables in a circle on a large platter. The plate must be large enough, with a flat bottom and a high rim. Start laying the vegetables along the edge of the plate, next to the rim. Alternate a slice of cucumber, a slice of tomato and a basil leaf. Then again cucumber, tomato, green basil.
If you decide to use multicolored tomatoes, they should be laid in turns, the way they are arranged in a baking dish for ratatouille for an original presentation.
Lay out a second, inner circle. You can leave the center empty. But for aesthetic reasons, especially if the big salad is served at a festive table, I advise putting in a “secondary” salad made of small cherry tomatoes, a hot pepper cut into rings, a few sprigs of herbs, olives, onion cut into strips, and so on.

Dressing

Salt the salad with fine “extra” salt. The salt dissolves almost immediately on the surface of the vegetables. Sprinkle with 0.5 tsp of dried oregano, rubbing it between your fingers. The oregano is the highlight of the dish. Drizzle the vegetables with 1 tsp of good balsamic vinegar, literally by the drop. Right before serving, pour 3 tbsp of the best first cold-pressed olive oil over the salad. It is labeled Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

Serving

Serve the salad at once, without any chilling or letting it soak. After standing, this amazing salad loses its aroma and freshness, which is unacceptable. A great addition to the salad is a lavash appetizer with herbs.
Treat yourself to an excellent vegetable salad. Young fresh vegetables are perfect for a fresh salad: tasty, and they keep all their properties and nutrients.

Calories and macros

135 kcal

Serving ≈ 270 g

Protein2 g7% of kcal
Fat11 g71% of kcal
Carbs8 g22% of kcal

100 g50 kcalProtein 0.9 gFat 4 gCarbs 2.8 g

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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