Chef John: Alright, today a little chef trick Spring Lettuce in a Cucumber “Vase”, I pronounce it vase, where you put your vase for serving, a bowl? How embarrassing? Alright, let me show you this little trick, we are going to fancify this up a little bit. You need an English cucumber, you can tell the English one there, those hermetically sealed ones, and yes, I am going to use my Japanese mandolin vegetable slicer, and again, you got to get one of those.
Now the first couple of slices we are not going to be able to use, so that’s going to be the perfect opportunity to get the perfect thickness, so I did the first one in there, that was a little too thick. So what I am going to do is, I am going to adjust the little screw on there, just to adjust it, and then I was pretty much -- you can see, I pretty much had the perfect width. So what you want here, you want it sturdy enough to stand up, but you want it to stick together. One other thing I warn you here is, as you go to the center, that’s where the seeds are and it looks really cool, because you can see the seeds, but it is not quite as sturdy as the pieces that have more flesh.
So anyway, what I am going to do, I am actually going to use two pieces. So look at that, the inside ones, because of the seeds, so I am going to use one to form my ring, and they really do stick together if you get the right thickness, because you know, they are wet and they adhere to each other. So, we are going to put one like that, we are going to take another piece, we are going to wrap it around, and you just stick it right together. Alright, and then once it sticks together, it will stand place, and especially once you get the salad. So now what you are going to do, you are going to take your spring, your baby spring greens, because of course. It is spring and you usually make a nice arrangement. Now again, you spend as much time as you want, I had to do the whole fruit salad things, that thing took me about you know 45 minutes, but you go in and you thrown in your greens and that is very cool and you got two choices here, you can dress the greens, or you can leave them dry and just put the dressing around, which kind of looks nice on the plate.
So it's up to you, of course, some croûtons will be nice, maybe some cherry tomatoes, cherry tomato weren't in season, but when you have PhothoShop they are always in season. So that’s just, I think a really interesting way to serve a little green salad, you can trick people in the cucumber, and another way I like to use it, as a side garnish for a main course or appetizer. And of course, I wouldn’t teach it like that, the demo is coming up here this week. We are going to do a beautiful Wild Salmon Cake, and I serve that with a nice Tarragon Aioli, real Aioli, I will show you how to make that. So anyway, go to foodwishes.com for more info and enjoy.
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