Winter denial.
The inspiration for this, oddly enough, was an Asian cucumber salad my family eats often with sliced cucumbers, sesame oil, and rice vinegar. I wanted to go sweeter, and thought -- what's a more summer taste than mangoes? The avocados sort of just ended up there.
I was serving this with a salty, spicy chili, so I went for very few and fresh flavors. If this was more of a centerpiece of the meal, I would probably add salt, pepper, and potentially even dried red pepper flakes.
Summer Cucumber Salad
10 minutes, serves 4-6
2 large cucumbers
2 limes
1 avocado (ripe, but still fairly firm)
1 mango (ripe, but still firm)
a few springs of cilantro
- Peel the cucumbers using a vegetable peeler.
- If you are like me, clean up all the peels that missed the trash can.
- Slice the cucumber in half length-wise, and use a small spoon to scrape out the seeds from both halves. Then slice the cucumber into small diced pieces and put in a large bowl.
- Cut the avocado in half, remove the pit, and then cut into roughly 1/2-inch cubes and add to bowl.
- Peel the mango and slice into similarly sized pieces, adding to salad. I was going to add 2 mangoes, and then one ended up being far too gooey and ripe. Tragically, I just ate that one off the skin.
- Chop the cilantro, removing extraneous stalk pieces, and add to bowl.
- Quarter one lime and squeeze juice into bowl. Toss gently with a large spoon or two to mix lime juice and cilantro evenly.
- Thinly slice the second lime to use as a garnish. Serve immediately, while the ingredients are still cold from the refrigerator.
