This cucumber salad recipe came from our Pok Pok cookbook and is very similar to one of our favorites – Papaya Salad. Exactly the same actually, just subbing cucumber for shredded papaya. Both are delicious, crisp, cool, and refreshing but very spicy due to the 3 Thai chili peppers in there. That cool + spicy combo is a real winner in our book. It’s also that kind of taste that you just can’t get enough of… sometimes leading to a runny nose and numb tongue. The rest of the salad consists of halved cherry tomatoes, long (green) beans, dry-fried baby shrimp, lime juice, and a few unsalted peanuts. Simple enough to make any day, anytime.
The stir fry was actually more of a side dish to the salad for us. We knew we wanted the salad, then had to figure out what else to have with it. We had some red bell pepper, onion, mushrooms and shrimp on hand, so while James made the salad I stir fried those veggies with some of our Japanese Toasted Sesame olive oil, chopped garlic, a little soy sauce, some Oriental ground mustard, and a little bit of this awesome hot Thai oil/sauce that my mom gave us. I threw in some rice noodles and Thai basil at the end. It turned out pretty good, but the flavor award here definitely goes to the Cucumber Salad!
What They Made 