Smashed Sichuan cucumber salad from Dinner: Changing the Game (page 379) by Melissa Clark

Where’s the full recipe - why can I only see the ingredients?

Accompaniments: Vietnamese ginger chicken; Five-spice duck breasts with crisp potato cakes; Ginger pork meatballs with cilantro and fish sauce; Shredded tofu with spicy ground chicken and edamame

Always check the publication for a full list of ingredients. An Eat Your Books index lists the main ingredients and does not include 'store-cupboard ingredients' (salt, pepper, oil, flour, etc.) - unless called for in significant quantity.

Notes about this recipe

  • teandoranges on March 10, 2026

    I have made this a couple of times, both times with English cucumbers. I prefer slicing the cucumbers to smashing, smashing yields no benifit and is just more mess as far as I can tell. The second time I doubled the sauce, it need it. Used about half a jalepeno, may try chili oil next time. Added sesame seeds as well.

  • bernalgirl on August 31, 2025

    This is the most straightforward of the four smashed cucumber recipes in my cookbook collection. It benefits from lightly salting the smashed cucumber while making the dressing, and adding some gochugaru if you like it spicy, as well as crushed Szechuan peppercorns for that numbing effect. Let it sit while making the rest of the dinner for best results.

  • Happykikkers on September 23, 2024

    This was nice but not fantastic. I forgot to follow the note here to salt first and let sit. This would have probably made the marinade less bland. Sprinkled with tons of salt when serving to make up for it. Did use chili oil instead of fresh chili and it gave a nice heat to the dish.

  • ezwriternc on March 24, 2023

    I never understood why it had to smash cucumbers but I tried it and liked it. I can see where salting them would bring out more flavor. I’ll definitely make this again.

  • snoozermoose on December 06, 2021

    I've made a lot of smashed cucumber recipes. This one was pretty good. The ginger was an unexpected addition but I liked it more than I was expecting.

  • TrishaCP on July 03, 2021

    This was ok. I salted the cucumber in advance and that definitely helped. I didn’t like the use of a single chile here-I prefer chile oil for better disbursement of flavor.

  • Dannausc on September 14, 2020

    Quick and easy. Fine.

  • hbakke on September 15, 2019

    Ty liked this more than I did. Not as flavorful as I had hoped. The sauce became very watery after adding the cucumber. The cucumber smashing made an enormous mess in the kitchen. As usual, I replaced the red chiles with jalapeno since nowhere sells red chiles around here.

  • meduff on February 02, 2019

    I had to make this 3 times. I had the same problems as others have had. For anyone wanting to make this dish I have a couple of suggestions that I think might help - especially with the dressing getting so diluted. 1) Smash the cucumber in a ziplock bag - otherwise you may be finding cucumber slime and seeds all over your kitchen. 2) Salt the already smashed cucumbers with about 1 ½ teaspoons of kosher salt. Let them drain for 30 minutes. Cucumbers contain about 98% water. This will help to keep the dressing from being so diluted. I pulled 8 tablespoons of water out of mine. 3) Buy the Chinese Black Vinegar - it makes a huge difference - all for the better. You can find it on Amazon - I bought Soeos Chinkiang Vinegar, Chinese Black Vinegar, Zhenjiang Vinegar. This is a good quality one that I will use often. 4) I could not find any fresh red chilies so I used something called Sambal Oelek Fresh Chili Paste in the Asian section of my local market.

  • julesamomof2 on May 16, 2018

    This was just okay, even with the chiles it was a little bland. On the plus side, it was very easy to put together which is definitely a must when preparing several dishes. However, I would be willing to put in more work for better flavor for sure.

  • raybun on June 09, 2017

    I bypassed the smashing step and just sliced the mini cucumbers I had. The sharp rice wine vinegar dressing with ginger garlic & chilli went very well together with the ginger pork meatballs from the same book, served with coconut rice.

  • clcorbi on April 15, 2017

    This was edible, but really not good enough to make it again. I don't really know why I thought I'd enjoy it more than the many excellent cucumber salads from Dunlop's books. The flavor was too mild, other than the slices of red chile, which were too assertive to me and felt sort of out of place.

  • Delys77 on April 12, 2017

    I wanted to like this but I found the cucumber just gave off so much water that the dressing didn't get a chance to permeate the dish. It was ok, but not a repeat for us.

You must Create an Account or Sign In to add a note to this book.

Reviews about this recipe

This recipe does not currently have any reviews.

You are reporting a broken online recipe link to EYB. Please confirm that you want the report submitted. Please also suggest the correct URL for this online recipe to the below textbox.