Cool Cucumber Salad

A few days ago I was inspired to make a salad that was light, refreshing, and would remind me of hot summer days. Winter in Canada always seems long and harsh. By the end of February I long for those hot summer days...

All this day dreaming took me back to the innocent days of my childhood. All the kids at our families cottage running around freely, our mom's calling us for dinner and at the table waiting for us was "Mizerja" salad. Yummy, creamy, refreshing and of course delicious. There never seemed to be enough, we engulfed it, literally. The word Mizerja translated to a cucumber salad that is made with fresh cucumbers cut into thin slices, seasoned with a dash of salt and freshly ground pepper plus a generous amount of sour cream or whipping cream and often garnished with dill.

I was craving Polish Cucumber Salad, but without all all that extra fat and calories from sour cream or whipping cream. Yoghurt? Why not! I love yoghurt, especially natural Balkan style yogurt, it has a little bit of fat, but it tastes delicious and typically it is a good quality product. Plus it has much less fat and than sour cream or 30% whipping cream. Changing a recipe with a lot of fat to a small amount of fat and still keeping all that creamy texture, in this recipe really worked out well, a moment of brilliance. On an aside, I'm sure this dish would be similarly tasty using 1% or 0% yoghurt.

The brilliance of this recipes is straining the whey through which we eliminate a lot of excess water and sourness. The final result is a more creamy flavoured and thick textured yoghurt. To the yoghurt add thinly sliced cucumber, salt and pepper, and for a modern twist instead of dill add sliced mint leaves. Voila!! Easy and delicious.

Yes, this salad was perfect, a perfect salad for a hot summer day... now those hot summer days need to arrive. However I can only do so much.

For a full recipe click here.