Smashed Cucumber Salad Takes Manhattan.

[elleng]

The difference between a sliced cucumber salad and a smashed cucumber salad reveals itself on first bite.

Sliced cucumbers have a smooth, impenetrable surface, and when you introduce them to dressing, they usually shrug it off. By contrast, smashed cucumbers are wide open: Their craggy edges and rough surfaces absorb flavors and form relationships in seconds.

Smashing (or smacking) cucumbers for salad is a standard technique in many parts of Asia that is showing its trendy side in New York this summer.

“It’s cool how just changing the way you break down an ingredient completely changes the way it feels and tastes,” said Danny Bowien, the chef at Mission Chinese Food on the Lower East Side.

Here’s the technique: With one hand, the cook lays the blade of a knife flat on top of the cucumber, with the cucumber resting under the widest part of the blade. The heel of the other hand comes down sharply on the blade, as though the cook is smashing a garlic clove to remove its peel. (Alternatively, a wooden mallet or rolling pin can be used, as they are in Japan.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/19/dining/cucumber-salad-recipes-smashed.html?

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Now why did I not think of that before?

I have one of those metal mallets with "teeth" for tenderizing meat.....a good whack of that should work, too.