- Hello everyone you're watching Preppy Kitchen
where I John Kanell teach you how to make delicious
home cooked dishes to share with your family and friends.
Today we're making a cucumber salad with dill,
mint, pickled onions and love, let's get started.
First off, we're making the dressing
I'm using one half of a cup of white vinegar
you could use a champagne or a white wine vinegar
if you wanna go fancy, quarter cup of water
and a third of a cup of granulated sugar.
Gonna mix that in there,
mix mix mix mix mix
and put it on a high heat mix up
until it just becomes clear and then set it aside.
I'm using a small red onion
and I think I'm gonna use most of it.
You probably wanna end up with a half a cup to three
quarters of a cup depending on how much you like onion.
The key is though that it's not gonna be raw onion
we're putting in here it's gonna get marinated
in the vinegar water sugar solution.
It'll lose a lot of its bite and become kind of pickled.
Love the color of red onion so beautiful.
We're gonna give this onion nice thin slices.
Like this slice too thick because I think
the key is that the onion gives you like a nice burst
of flavor in a little bit of bite,
but it's not gonna be overpowering.
So part of that is controlling the size of the slices.
Today I'm making the salad for a barbecue
but it would go perfectly with my stuffed chicken breast
you can click up here for that.
Or you could make this with some spanakopita
and you would be in heaven as a Greek spinach pie
and it's a family favorite, click up here for that notice.
No tears, no tears to the onions because of magic.
Alright, so what we're gonna do is let this hang out
over here in that vinegar mixtures move it around.
And then while we do the rest of our prep,
this will be marinating
and losing all that onion bite that you know,
no one wants to kiss you after that, this will fix that.
This recipe calls for three English cucumbers however,
I totally spaced out at the market.
I call it dad brain
and I bought regular cucumbers but that's fine too.
You don't have to use English cucumbers.
The only reason that's specified in a lot of recipes
is they have a beautiful delicate skin,
so you don't have to peel them,
but I wanted to peel them anyways
to get some more visual interest.
So here's what we're gonna do.
Just peel off a few strips,
not all of the skin and then you'll have like,
just like a little bit of a stripy situation happening
and it'll make your salad all the more beautiful.
You like cucumbers? I'm pretty sure have like a good amount
of produce wax on them as well so the skin
isn't always amazing to eat.
So we're gonna give this a pretty thin slice
how thin is kind of up to you.
Some people want a big chunk of cucumber.
Some people want paper thin little wafers
that become kind of more soft.
I'm someplace in the middle,
so about like an eighth of an inch or so
you can add some variety.
So I totally love the way these pieces look with just
a little bit of the skin hanging out, they look so fancy.
Repeat this process for the other two and we'll move on.
So I mentioned the barbecue but I'm kind of excited
because the weather is finally warming up enough
to have like outdoor entertaining for real.
So firing up that barbecue
and making a bunch of sides there will be a potato salad
and some good times having friends over
and as a new dad,
and two years counts as new still,
I don't get to see my friends enough.
So this is a special salad for a special occasion.
So here's the deal.
These cucumbers are basically pure water.
So as soon as we add in our dressing and our salt,
they're going to leap out a lot of water
and you'll have kind of a watery mess.
Maybe you like that in which case moving along,
but if you don't want to have your dressing so watered down.
Then what we're gonna do is salt these cucumbers.
They will release a lot of water with salt so,
so I'm using a teaspoon of salt
and a sprinkling it over my layers of cucumbers,
toss them up.
Basically, you wanna distribute the salt
to all the different pieces.
Now they taste delicious by the way,
cover em up, pop them in the fridge
and we'll be back in like maybe half an hour
or an hour see you soon.
So it's been about 40 minutes
and let's take a look at what happened.
They look just like normal cucumbers.
But what's all this stuff?
That's the extra water that we didn't want in our salad.
I mean, I should have used a strainer.
What am I thinking?
This wasn't so salty, I would drink this straight.
Maybe it's like a Dirty Martini and setting it aside.
Here we have our delicious slightly less watery cucumbers.
And while that was chilling,
this is hanging out and we have some semi pickled.
Red onions, just pour this over
and give it a toss.
This is perfectly delicious just like this.
You can chill it or you can keep going like we are.
All right, first off is some fresh dill.
I love fresh dill.
So happy whenever I go to a market where
they sell it in big bunches like this instead
of those little plastic containers
which are totally not cool people.
Also so expensive that's like $8 for, for like half a sprig.
Harvesting a lot of this dill removing
a couple of the stems.
And this is around my recipes has a quarter cup
but you know, it's like garlic.
How much do you want, but I loved it, I love it.
I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it.
That's for older people who watch that
Saturday Night Live skit.
Now totally delicious, but what else could we add?
How about just a little bit of fresh mint? Yes,
mint and cucumber.
Hello, let's get that now, John talks about the sad sad
plastic containers John whips out a sad plastic container
lube some that dill side and just removed the leaves
you can give them a rip.
You can give them a little bit of a chop
or whatever makes you happy as it is your salad yours.
If anyone in Texas is watching or a southern state,
would you let me know if I don't give a rip,
is something people say or is that just one character
on Real Housewives of Dallas? Let me know.
I don't give a rip.
Do people say that?
Alright, so my God, this would be the best.
I could totally get some gin right now and be real happy
or some tequila just saying .
Anyways maybe quarter cup of mint sprinkled in there.
And I would say you're done.
All you want to do now is season with a little bit of salt
and pepper to taste.
That is wonderful.
This tastes like summer, the mint the cucumber,
how could you say no to this it's a perfect side dish
for nearly anything I can think of.
But my gosh, you've gotta trust me on this.
Just try it even if you don't like onions.
These are like candy now.
If you like this recipe, you've got to check out this
playlist I made just for you click up here for that .
It has a ton of recipes like shrimp tacos,
avocado, citrus salad.
Everything that you would want for a warm
summer day for a perfect meal.
If you like my recipes, hit that like button subscribe
and I'll see in the next video.