Produce
Cucumber
Also called Lebanese cucumber
A cooling fruit eaten as a vegetable, mostly water held in a crisp wall. It is a texture and a temperature, not a flavour bomb.
Origin
Domesticated in South Asia and spread early into the Middle East and the Mediterranean. The long supermarket cucumber is a modern, mild type.
Flavour
Water, green, a slight bitterness in the skin and near the stem. Old cucumbers go hollow, seedy and sour.
How to use it
Salt slices or batons and let them sit if you want crunch without a puddle in fattoush, gimbap or cacık — then pat dry. Peel if the skin is waxed or tough; leave it on Lebanese cucumbers. A spoon dragged down the length removes the wettest seeds. Do not cook cucumber hard unless you are making a specific braised dish; it goes army-green and limp. In naengmyeon it is there to cool the bowl. Iceberg is a closer cold-snap stand-in than courgette.
Storage
Fridge, in the crisper, not against the back wall where it can freeze. Do not freeze.
Recipes using it
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