Khamang Kakdi/ Juicy cucumber salad

It’s close to a 3 day eid break here & all I want to do is laze around at home, do some cleaning & cook up some stuff. My niece & co have moved back to Dubai (yayyy). So, a good portion of time might be spent with them & none of the cleaning/ cooking might even happen :D. I am so excited about the new place that Tash is moving into. Their kitchen gets a good amount of natural sunlight during the day. My first thought on entering their kitchen is how awesome it would be to cook there for my blog (Extremely selfish thought I know but am sure my niece will be thrilled to bits whenever I cook there:D). I might even finally get to do a video cos a) there is ample sunlight & b) there is ample space 😀 (double yayyyy!). Anywho, when I was browsing through insta one day, I came across this dish on Saffrontrail’s insta stories. Since the dish looked interesting, I went into the recipe. I was completely sold out on seeing this dish & I wanted to try it out immediately. Cucumber is a veggie that’s almost always stocked up at home since me, mom & dad have it in plenty. And just like I thought, the dish turned out brilliant. Cucumber is a veggie that’s low in carb & high in fiber. Hence, it makes it place very well in salads. It’s also a very versatile veggie. You can have it raw or cooked, you can add it to a salad, make raita or even make subji (side dish) out of this. However, I find consuming cucumbers boring & monotonous over a period of time. When I come across such recipe golds, I am always happy cos it helps break the monotony in such a nice way. I have honestly never come across a nice tasting salad where cucumber is the star of the salad (Yes, please go ahead & call me crazy if you like). This dish changed that feeling for me totally. I zimbly zimbly loved it so much that I had this salad 3 times for lunch the week I found this recipe :). The other good thing for my family with this recipe is that they can all consume this salad without thinking too much since everything in it is totally Indian (my fil/ mil typically don’t prefer non-indian condiments being added to any dish). Overall, it’s a big win for us. My fil loved it so much, he asked me to make it for him once (and that is a huge win for me people). This dish overall has our agmark seal on it :D. Try it, doesn’t take long at all & there is NO cooking involved.

My hindi (or probably marathi) learning with this dish – Khamang Kakdi means Juicy cucumbers (Khamang = Juicy; Kakdi = Cucumbers, armenian that too apparently).

5 from 1 vote

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Khamang Khakdi/ Juicy cucumber salad

Prep Time

10 mins

Cook Time

5 mins

 

Course: Salad

Cuisine: Indian

Servings: 4 people

Ingredients

• 4 big cucumbers
• 4 nos green chillies
• 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• a pinch asafodita
• few curry leaves
• 1/8 cup coriander leaves
• 3 tbsp scraped coconut
• 1/2 cup dry roasted peanuts
• 1 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp coconut oil/ refined oil

Instructions

1. Wash, peel & chop cucumbers into slightly chunky pieces & place them in a large bowl.

2. Wash & chop green chillies finely. Wash & chop coriander leaves finely. Set it aside.  Pound the dry roasted peanuts coarsely using a mortal/ pestle (or cut into pieces using a knife) & set it aside. 

3. In a small kadai/ pan, heat some oil. Once the oil gets heated, add the mustard seeds. 

4. Once the mustard seeds start to splutter, add the cumin seeds. Once the cumin seeds start to splutter as well, add the green chillies & asafodita. 

5. Once the raw smell of green chillies goes off, add the curry leaves and when they start to crisp up, turn off the heat. 

6. Add this mixture/ tadka on to the cucumbers. Along with that, add the scraped coconut, coriander leaves, salt & mix everything well. Check & adjust for salt. 

7. You can have this immediately or can refrigerate for a few hours before serving (chilling helps soak in the flavours better). 

8. Right before serving, add the coarsely pound peanuts & give it a quick toss before digging in. This is truly one of the best cucumber salads ever! 

Recipe Notes

1. You can chop up the cucumber into tiny squares but I somehow like it being slightly more chunky. 
2. If you refrigerate this salad, the cucumbers are going to leave water. Also, add a little less salt if planning to refrigerate. You could also not add salt at all if refrigerating & instead, add it right before you plan to have it. 
3. The peanuts & coconut is what make this dish come to life. It's literally like making poha with cucumbers :). 

Stepwise pictures

Wash, peel & chop cucumbers into slightly chunky pieces & place them in a large bowl. Set it aside. Also, clean & chop green chillies & coriander leaves (not shown in pic) finely. Set them aside as well.

In a small kadai/ pan, heat some oil & add mustard seeds.

Once it starts to splutter, add cumin seeds.

Once the cumin seeds start to splutter as well, throw in the chopped green chillies & asafodita.

Saute a bit & add curry leaves. Saute for a few seconds till it starts to crisp up. Turn off the heat.

Add this mixture/ tadka onto the bowl with cucumbers. Also add the chopped coriander leaves, scraped coconut & salt.

Mix well. Check & adjust for salt.

If you don’t plan on having this immediately, store it in the refrigerator with an airtight lid/ cling wrap. Right before serving, add the coarsely pounded ground nuts.

Toss the ground nuts with the cucumbers.

Serve cold :). You can have this as a side salad or as your whole meal. I had a huge bowl for lunch.