Cucumber aspic 胡瓜のゼリー

This is the second dish we made using the large American cucumbers we got through grocery home delivery by mistake. Since my wife is into anything “aspic”, this was “the dish” for her. It turned out to be remarkably good. For the picture I added slices of Japanese cucumber as a topping garnish and made an instant dill sauce. My wife later made a different sauce for this dish which is based on dressing for cucumber salad. and it worked well. The cucumber flavor of the aspic was very subtle. Most of the cucumber flavor seems to have come from the garnish of Japanese cucumbers but the aspic had a nice texture and fairly complex flavors.

This is based on the recipe on cooks.com.

Ingredients:
2 large American cucumbers, peeled and seeded, grated (I used a Japanese grater to get a fine grated texture)
1/2 c. cold water (We felt that plain water brings nothing to the “show” so we used lightly sweetened cold mint/black tea that my wife makes for the summer months because it was available. Chicken stock would probably work too).
1/2 c. boiling water
2 tbsp. Knox gelatin
1 tsp. grated onion (we used Vidalia onion)
2 1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
2 tbsp. vinegar (we used sushi vinegar)
2 tbsp. lemon juice
Dash of Tabasco sauce (we used Sriracha)

For sauce
Version 1
1tbs Greek yogurt
1tbs sour cream
1 tsp lemon juice
1tbs chopped dill

Version 21/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup Greek yogurt
1/4 cup Mayonnaise
2 Tbs. sushi vinegar
1 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce
1/4 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1tbs chopped dill

Directions:
Bloom the gelatin by soaking it in the cold water for 5 minutes. Then add the boiling water, stir until thoroughly dissolved, then add all the other ingredients. Put into molds and set in refrigerator to congeal. Yield 6 servings.

This was a very light refreshing dish perfect for a hot summer day. Although the cucumber taste was very subtle the entire refridgerator smelled of cucumber as the aspic was solidifying (which was a very pleasant smell). The flavors were subtle but complex. No single one stood out. For example there was a slight hint of the mint from the tea and a slight hint of the onion. We could have used a bit more hot sauce. The texture was very smooth and pleasing. The sour cream based sauce with the dill really finished the whole dish nicely. Maybe getting the wrong cucumbers wasn’t such a bad mistake after all.