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[RC94]

Here is a very quick and easy recipe.  Good side dish or snack:

Cucumber Salad

Ingredients
2 cups thinly sliced Japanese cucumbers
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
2 teaspoons sesame seeds

Directions
If Japanese cucumbers are not available, English cucumbers can be substituted. The English cucumbers need to be peeled, cut lengthwise, seeded and sliced into thin half moons. In a large bowl, combine cucumbers and salt and mix well. Add sugar, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar and sesame oil and mix well. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and mix. Let marinate for at least 30 minutes before serving.

[RC94]

I love rice and make it for a lot of kinds of dishes.  I have a rice cooker and always have a number of kinds of rice on hand, including sushi rice (i.e. short grain rice).  Sometimes I like the rice to be “sticky” like you get in a Japanese restaurant.  I don’t have the patience (or the skill) to cut the rice with rice wine vinegar like they do in the restaurant but I wanted to find a way to get a similar “sticky” effect without much effort and I have a great tip for doing that:

I have found that about 3 teaspoons of rice wine vinegar per cup of rice works well.  Mix the rice wine vinegar with the water and rice before you start cooking it and then just cook it normally.

It comes out great and with no extra effort.  I make it for a number of dishes, from grilled chicken or fish with my garlic cream sauce I posted a while ago to grilled, stuffed rice cakes (which I will post at some point if you guys want).  The stickiness for the chicken with garlic cream sauce is more of a preference for me, but the stickiness for the grilled rice cakes is important to help it stay together.