by A.J. Coltrane

We had company over for grilling last night, and we have lots of cucumbers, so I made a creamy cucumber salad, using Ina Garten’s recipe as a starting point. Pictured is a family-style presentation:

Her salad calls for four hot-house cucumbers and two small red onions. The dressing is a 4-1 ratio of whole-milk yogurt to sour cream, flavored with dill, white wine vinegar, and pepper.

On the Barefoot Contessa tv show she uses greek yogurt and sour cream for dressing. Inspired by that, I used a small (6 oz) Greek yogurt and about 1.5 ounces of sour cream, flavored with fresh mint, dried oregano, cumin, and rice wine vinegar. It’s what we had available, and the flavorings pushed the recipe in a welcome Mediterranean direction.

The other difference between hers and the one pictured is that I didn’t have time to drain the cucumbers, onions, and yogurt for the 4+ hours (or overnight) called for in the recipe. For me, it needed to be done draining in about an hour. Longer might have been preferable, but the result was good with the shorter time allowed.

She suggests that this salad is a good substitute for cole slaw, and I think that’s accurate. It’s best served chilled, and it gets better when allowed to “marinate” for a while. It was definitely a nice change of pace from the other grilled foods we offered. We’ll be making it again for sure.