Sunomono

I'd show you a picture, but we eated it.

In Japanese restaurants, especially sushi joints, they often serve a lovely little cup of cucumber salad before your meal. It's cold, it's tangy, it's yumyumyum.

We now know how to make this. And it's easy. And it's tasty. And you don't need much stuff. And it takes 20 minutes. And there are maybe 40 calories in the whole thing. Whee!

Sunomono:
1 small daikon*
1 small cucumber**
5Tbsp rice vinegar (we use Japanese unseasoned rice vinegar, sometimes labeled as sushi vinegar)
2Tbsp sugar
some salt

- peel and slice the veg. I peel with a peeler and then use my mandoline. I think you could also use the veg peeler to make long strips. Or just use your chef's knife.

- salt the veg and let it sit in a colander for 5-10 minutes. The longer it sits, the saltier it will be. I think 10 minutes is better.

- Rinse, drain, shake it off a bit. Pour into a bowl.

- Mix the vinegar and sugar, stir it around, and pour it over the veg, tossing the mixture a little to get it all in there.

- Refrigerate 15 minutes at least, and serve cold.

*I think this is a hilarious instruction, since daikon are not small. I bought a regular one (about 16 inches long, about 3 inches in diameter) and cut off 5 inches worth each time I made this. The one I bought, thus, made 3 preparations of sunomono. And it cost like $1.

**I think the dish tastes better with a 2-1 ratio of cucumber to daikon. So I used more like one large cucumber and 5 inches of daikon. I also like to slice the cuke into rounds and make the daikon into matchsticks, but I'm nuts like that. You do what you want.