Gurkensalat
Thinly sliced cucumber in a sweet and sour dressing of soured cream, vinegar and dill, ready in 10 minutes with no cooking.
Photograph credit: Gurkensalat by Crosa · CC BY 2.0 · Flickr
The Method for Gurkensalat
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Slice the cucumbers very thin. Toss with the salt in a colander and leave for 10 minutes.
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Squeeze the slices gently and pat dry.
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Mix the soured cream, milk, vinegar, sugar, dill and pepper.
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Fold in the cucumber and serve at once.
Keep an Eye on These
- Salt and drain the cucumber first.
- Slice it as thin as possible.
- Serve soon after mixing.
Common Substitutions & Variations
- A dry vermouth keeps for longer than an open bottle of white wine and is the closer swap than a random white left in the fridge; for an alcohol-free version, use the same amount of stock with a squeeze of lemon.
Good to Know About Gurkensalat
Most home cucumber salads end up watery, and the fix is to salt the slices first. Gurkensalat is the German cucumber salad, thin slices in a creamy, tangy dressing with dill, and it is served with fried fish, schnitzel or sausages.
Slice the cucumber as thin as you can, with a mandoline if you have one. Toss the slices with salt and leave them in a colander for 10 minutes, until a surprising amount of water has run out. Press the slices gently with your hands to squeeze out more, then pat them dry. A salad made from unsalted cucumber turns the dressing thin and pale within minutes.
Mix the soured cream with a splash of milk, white wine vinegar, a little sugar and chopped dill and fold in the cucumber. Season with white pepper and taste: it should be sour, sweet and creamy all at once. Serve straight away, or chill for 20 minutes. It keeps only an hour or two before it turns watery again.
To Go With It
Schnitzel · Fried fish · Boiled potatoes · Sausages
Keeping Gurkensalat
Best fresh. It turns watery after 2 hours.
Gurkensalat Nutrition
Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked.
First published ; last changed .
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