I love cooking with cucumber. It’s really delicious cooked and I often put it in a stir fry julienned or just chopped into stick shapes and add it to the pan with all the other ingredients. Cooked cucumber has a subtle, delicate taste which works really well with Asian recipes. I have also added crunchy cashews and a bit of coconut so it has my favourite combo of sweet and savoury with smooth and crunchy and is nice and healthy but super tasty. Perfect for a vegetarian or vegan dinner.

Recipe

Serves 2 (you can double or triple the ingredients for more diners)

Ingredients:
1 cucumber cut into chunks (I like them like fat chip shape)
2 cloves minced garlic
1 tablespoon of coconut oil
1 tablespoon of toasted sesame oil
2 tablespoons of fresh ginger cut into matchsticks
2 spring onions finely chopped
a small bunch of coriander finely chopped
2 tablespoons of soya sauce
1/2-1 red chilli finely chopped or sliced without seeds.
2 teaspoons of maple syrup
A few handfuls of roasted and salted cashews nuts whole or roughly chopped
A sprinkling of black onion seed
A sprinkling of coconut chips (or desiccated coconut)
100g of uncooked rice noodles cooked according to the instructions on the packet and kept warm

How:
Heat the oils in a frying pan or wok, then add the ginger slivers, garlic and chilli.
Stir fry till the ginger is tender. Add the cucumber chunks and stir fry for about 10 minutes until cooked through or starting to go golden. Next add the cashews and continue to stir fry for a few minutes.
Add the soya sauce and the maple syrup and mix it all together.
Put the noodles in a bowl(s) and add the stir fry cucumbers on top.
Sprinkle with the coriander, the coconut, the spring onion and the nigella seeds.
Serve straight away with more soya sauce if needed and season to taste with salt and pepper.

I shop at:
Waitrose
Sainsbury’s
Tesco
Lidl