Castellon's Kitchen: Slithering Salad (Spicy Cucumber Salad)

One of the bright sides to all this 'Stay at Home' time here in California, besides helping curb the infection rate of the COVID-19 virus, is that being at home with nowhere to go has got me tinkering in the kitchen again. No more obligations to distract me from playing around with my Halloween ideas. Last year, I missed blogging my Summer of Halloween recipes so this year, I'm determined to get an early start. Armed with lots of time on my hands and lots of ideas, here's a super simple idea that comes together quick and easy.

An idea inspired by the cucumber salads served at Japanese restaurants and Sushi places. Cool, crisp cucumbers drizzled in a light soy sesame dressing...it's one of my favorite sides to have with sushi. I spiralized the cucumbers, kicked up the dressing with garlic chili sauce for heat, and added fun plating that turned a simple salad of cucumbers into a dramatic, delicious and festive Halloween recipe. Stay safe my friends.

(🎃221 days until Halloween...in case you're wondering🎃)

Slithering Salad (Spicy Cucumber Salad)

Serves 4-6

Spicy Dressing
2 1/2 T rice wine vinegar
1-2 T garlic chili sauce (to taste)
1 T soy sauce
1 T sesame oil
1 T honey
1 t. fresh ginger, finely grated

3 English cucumbers
2 juniper berries or whole allspice berries (snake eyes)
Black sesame seeds (garnish)

Prepare dressing. Mix all ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.

Spiralize the cucumbers:
Use straight cucumbers to get the best results.

Select the head and tail cucumbers for your snake. Choose a cucumber that has a tapered narrow end to be the tail of your snake, and choose a cucumber that has a long piece of vine attached to it to make the best snake head with his tongue hanging out. The third cucumber will be to lengthen your snake and bridge between the head and tail sections.

Head cucumber: On the non-vine end of the cucumber, thread a bamboo skewer through the center of the cucumber lengthwise leaving enough of the skewer exposed so you can pull it out later. I left about an inch and a half. This photo below shows a much longer section of the skewer as it was an in progress pic, but the amount of skewer exposed will depend on how big your cucumbers are to begin with.

Place your threaded cucumber down on the cutting board, and with your knife at about a 45 degree angle, slowly rotate the cucumber as you cut down to the skewer, creating a continuous spiral around the skewer that holds everything in place.

Adjust as you go. Your cuts will not be even all the way around due to the variation of the cucumbers and how centered your skewer is inside, but don't worry too much about it. Once the cuts are done, the variations of the spirals will hardly be noticeable.

Continue cutting the spirals until you are about 4 inches from the tip of your snakes tongue. You don't want to cut spirals all the way into his head. Remove the bamboo skewer to release your snake coils.

Snake eyes: Use the end of a skewer to poke eye holes in the cucumber on opposite sides of the head and then press juniper berries into the eye holes. If you can't find juniper berries, substitute with whole allspice berries. Trim the tongue if needed.

Once you finish with your "snake head", repeat the spiraling with the tail cucumber. For the tail portion, thread the skewer starting at the tapered narrow end and begin spiraling at the narrow tail end until you reach the the end of the threaded bamboo skewer and trim off any excess unspiraled cucumber. Remove the skewer carefully releasing the coils and set aside. Repeat spiraling with the third cucumber and trim both round ends off the cucumber. The picture below shows the untrimmed ends of the head and tail sections of spiralized cucumbers.