This week’s pot luck choice is one of Yotam’s cucumber recipes…A very popular new cucumber dish at our last-minute summer dinner party one night was an easy cool cucumber salad, so popular that we used 3 of those long English cucumbers and not a bite left. I had the Asian vinegar but substituted the green onions with a few that were from the veggie stand a little short fat variety as well as a few fresh chives from the porch herb pots.
700g cucumbers (roughly 2 large cucumbers), quartered lengthways
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
2 tsp Shao Hsing rice vinegar
3 tbsp lime juice
3 tsp flaked sea salt
3 tbsp sunflower oil or canola oil
2 spring onions, trimmed and finely sliced on an angle
½ tbsp black sesame seeds
For the dressing
60g tahini
2 tbsp soy sauce (or tamari, to make the dish gluten-free)
1½ tbsp mirin
1½ tbsp rice-wine vinegar
Scoop out and discard the watery center and seeds from the cucumber quarters, then cut the flesh widthways into chunky, 2cm-thick pieces. Put the cucumber in a bowl with the garlic, vinegar, lime juice, and three teaspoons of flaked sea salt, then mix with your hands, lightly crushing the cucumber pieces as you do so.
Gently heat the oil in a small saucepan until warm – about two minutes – then pour over the cucumber and leave to marinate for two hours.
Whisk all the dressing ingredients and two tablespoons of water until you end up with a very smooth sauce (it will seize up a bit to start with, but persevere and it will come together smoothly).
Pour the tahini mixture on to a large plate with a lip, so it naturally pools into a circle in the middle. Drain the cucumbers very well, discarding the liquid, then pile on top of the sauce. Scatter over the sliced spring onion and the sesame seeds, and serve at once.
Cucina Magia 
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