Salad with Fermented Cucumbers, Onion and Garlic

Name: Salad with Fermented Cucumbers, Onion and Garlic
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 15 min
Cuisine: European
Ingredients: Fermented cucumbers 6-8; Garlic 1-2 cloves; Small onion 1; Sunflower oil 2-3 tbsp

Dishes served as appetizers are usually quite simple. Many of you will recall a recent party or a celebration at work or with friends. Typically the appetizers are lots of little sandwiches, salads (first of all Olivier salad), herring, pickled or salted vegetables, and all kinds of cold cuts, fish and vegetable platters. Unfortunately, hot appetizers are rather rare with us. A salad with salt-cured cucumbers is more familiar to us. And in season, my recipe for lightly salted cucumbers.

In the old days, when noblemen visited each other “for dinner”, as they say, they would enjoy various drinks in small doses during conversation before the meal, all within the bounds of decency, with refined snacks to go with them. These snacks were called entrées (from the French entrée). They were served on trays and made up of a wide variety of foods: salted (fermented) or pickled vegetables, red or black caviar, mushrooms, herring, cheeses, sandwiches and so on. This approach to entertaining is no longer popular today, though Turkish cuisine has something similar: meze. It's a varied assortment of small appetizers served on trays.

In Italy, antipasti are popular. They are not “instead of pasta”, as many think, but “before pasta”. Antipasti are a very diverse range of appetizers served before the meal. Caprese salad and bruschetta are among the best antipasti.

Where I come from, the best appetizer is usually considered to be sauerkraut, tomatoes, mushrooms, or herring with onion. And of course Olivier salad. People without much imagination simply nibble on a fermented cucumber. Although a fermented cucumber is, above all, a great addition to all kinds of salads.

For those who see appetizers first of all as food, an ordinary salt-cured cucumber is not just an addition to a salad but can become the base of one. When I was little, one of the most popular dishes at my grandmother's in the village was fried potatoes with fermented cucumbers. More precisely, not just with cucumbers: people preferred a salad of salted or fermented cucumbers with a special dressing.

There were always fermented cucumbers in the village, put up in a big barrel in the cellar. Since childhood I've loved fried potatoes and salad with salt-cured cucumbers. This salad is made very quickly and is great as an appetizer or as a dish on its own.

A very simple recipe: salad with salt-cured cucumbers.

More with cucumbers

Cabbage, Cucumber and Tomato SaladSimple fresh salad of young cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrot and herbs with lemon juice and vegetable oil. Step-by-step recipe, ready in 15 minutes.

Smashed Cucumbers – Chinese Cucumber SaladChinese smashed cucumber salad with garlic and chili, dressed with soy sauce, vinegar and sesame oil. A step-by-step recipe with photos, ready in 15 mins.

TabboulehClassic tabbouleh with bulgur, parsley, mint, tomatoes and cucumbers, dressed with lemon and olive oil. A quick vegetarian Middle Eastern salad, step by step.

Shopska SaladClassic Bulgarian Shopska salad: tomatoes, cucumbers, green pepper and parsley under a white cap of grated sirene (brynza). Ready in 15 minutes, no salt needed.

Fermented Pickles in Jars for WinterFermented pickles the old-fashioned way: cucumbers in salt brine with garlic, dill and horseradish leaves for 4 days, then canned in jars for winter.

Ingredients

2 servings

Fermented cucumbers 6-8
Garlic 1-2 cloves
Small onion 1
Sunflower oil 2-3 tbsp

Step-by-step recipe

Cook modeKeeps your screen from turning off while the recipe is open

To make a salad with salt-cured cucumbers you need homemade, summer-made fermented cucumbers. Pickled cucumbers, lightly salted ones or ones simply canned with vinegar won't work. You need cucumbers with a sour taste, fermented by natural fermentation. They're also perfect for solyanka or rassolnik. I've already written about how to ferment cucumbers at home and then preserve them by canning. At home we have liter jars of fermented cucumbers standing in the pantry since summer, in cloudy brine. They keep perfectly until spring. If you don't have homemade ones, you can always buy fermented cucumbers at a nearby market, where you can taste them and pick tasty, properly sour ones.
I recommend choosing small cucumbers that aren't overripe. Large, overripe cucumbers with hollows inside don't work well for this salad. They often hold a lot of brine and leak when cut.
Cut good fermented cucumbers into medium-sized pieces. I recommend pieces of about 12-15 mm. Cut this way, the salad is best for snacking on. Put the cut cucumbers in a salad bowl.
Peel 1-2 cloves of garlic. Don't add too much garlic. With a sharp knife, cut the garlic into small cubes, about the size of a match head. You can go finer, but don't use gadgets to chop the garlic: they crush it into mush. For this salad, the garlic should be cut so that you can feel the pieces.
You need a small onion. If need be, you can use half an onion. Peel the onion and chop it finely.
Add the finely chopped onion and garlic to the cucumbers. Mix gently so all the ingredients are evenly distributed.
Add 2-3 tbsp of sunflower oil. It's best if the oil is refined, without a sunflower seed smell. Mix the salt-cured cucumber salad.
Salad with salt-cured cucumbers makes a great appetizer and is also very good with fried potatoes.
You can divide the salad with salt-cured cucumbers among individual salad bowls or put it on a plate with potatoes. Cucumbers with garlic taste good either way.