My Cucumber Conversion

How a box of home grown French cucumbers (plus grapes and dill) changed my mind, and inspired the most delicious summer salad

Remember last year’s viral cucumber-salad-in-a-jar craze? You know, the one where you’d thinly slice a cucumber straight into a lidded jar, adding soy sauce, chilli, sesame, and whatever else you felt like? You’d then pop the lid on, shake it like a cocktail, and voilà: softened cucumber rounds, perfectly coated in your dressing of choice.

With all credit due to Logan “Cucumber Guy” Moffitt (aka logagm on TikTok and logansfewd on IG), everyone was making these viral salads last August, including our nanny. She’d make one for lunch every day, with tuna, sesame seeds, and chilli oil. And while it definitely looked good —very good— I actually never participated in any of the fun.

Why? It could have been my visceral aversion to trends, or perhaps, deep down, my love for cucumber just wasn’t that strong.

Fast forward to last week here in Cotignac, the tiny village in Provence where my family and I have perched ourselves for the past month. The brother of the owner of the house we’ve rented stops by every few days to tend to the pool and garden.

But on that fateful day, he also kindly brought along a box of veggies and herbs that he’d grown himself, in the even tinier neighbouring village of Saint Antonin du Var. Among the colourful courgettes, aubergines, tomatoes, basil, sweet potatoes, and apricots were some immaculate cucumbers.

My sister and her kids happened to be visiting, so that afternoon, I chopped the fresh cucumbers into chunky, bite-sized pieces, and dressed them with local extra virgin olive oil, salt, and lemon juice and set them out as a snack.

Guys, my mind was blown. Is this what I’ve been missing when it comes to cucumbers all these years? That cool, salty, lemony cucumber was one of the most delicious bites I’d had all week. We all demolished them within minutes. Right then and there, I realised I didn’t just like cucumbers, I fucking love them.

I was tempted to share the “recipe” for this perfect snack online, but held I back. It just felt a little too basic to warrant a dedicated space on my grid, delicious as they were.

So I started brainstorming other salad ideas, with cucumber as the star. I always love a gentle nudge of sweetness in a mostly herby, acidic dish, so I figured wafer-thin slices of green grapes could work well. My herb of choice was dill (as it goes so well cucumber), along with finely sliced cornichons for a crunchy, briny pop of earthy goodness. I finished the whole thing off with some finely sliced shallots and toasted sunflower seeds, and then simply and deliciously seasoned the salad with some really good extra virgin olive oil, lots of salt and loads of lemon juice.

Absolutely perfect as it was, I decided to add something cooling and creamy to cut through. So I laid it all onto a bed of lemon-zesty, garlicky, salty Greek yoghurt.

Not gonna lie, I thoroughly enjoyed making this salad. It was soo damn easy!

Oh, and the eating part? So damn delicious!

I think this salad is an ideal balance of cool, crunchy, sweet, herby, briny, creamy, salty, and tart, and I hope you love it as much as I do!

CUCUMBER AND GRAPE SALAD WITH DILL, GHERKINS AND GARLICKY YOGHURT

INGREDIENTS:

• 1.5 cucumbers, cut into chunky, angular wedges.

• Around 1 cup green grapes, sliced into wafer thin rounds

• A handful or so of gherkins, sliced super fine on the diagonal

• 2 small or 1 large shallot, sliced into thin strips

• A full bunch of dill and/or mint roughly chopped

• A large handful sunflower seeds, toasted in a pan or roasted in the oven until golden and crunchy (takes about 10 mins)

• Extra virgin olive oil

• 2 lemons

• Flaky salt

• Half a cup or so Greek yoghurt

• 1 to 2 garlic cloves

METHOD:

• Make the yoghurt by mixing it with the zest of 1 lemon, grated garlic and salt. Mix well and taste to make any adjustments.

• In a large bowl, add the cucumber, grapes, gherkins, shallots and herbs

• Dress generously with evoo, salt and the juice of 1 to 2 lemons (start with 1 and add more if need be)

• Toss well and taste to make any adjustments before adding the toasted seeds and tossing again

• To plate, shmear the yoghurt onto the base of a platter and top with the salad. Enjoy!