Indian style fresh Cucumber chaat

Summer is quickly, far too quickly coming to an end I feel.  Our summer has been filled with settling down and enjoying our new home, road trips,  biking  and walking around our neighborhood,  visiting friends, gardening (for my dad basically) and eating a lot of my mom's yummy meals and I don't want it to end and looking forward to more fun. But then comes something I’m least looking forward to #1) My parents returning back to India and #2) Sending lil’Appu back to daycare. I don’t even want to discuss these 2 topics at the moment… *sigh* :-(

Today, I’m not really sharing any recipe as such but a very simple and totally nostalgic Indian snack with fresh Cucumbers. Most of you know by now about my dad’s beautiful veggie garden that’s treating us with its bounty full of ripened veggies and we are literally feasting on them lately. This weekend we decided to pick up several of the ripened cucumbers. It was a hot sunny day and almost time for evening Tea and the minute we saw the juicy, ripe and beautiful cucumbers we wanted to have it instantly and forgot all about Tea :-)

Lil'Appu enjoys helping with plucking the veggies and carrying them back to the kitchen. Well, sometimes he thinks we gave him a new toy :-) And he really loves eating cucumber. We plucked 4 large cucumbers btw....

So I started washing, peeling and slicing them up into quarters and my mom grabbed some and stared munching immediately. That’s when I remembered a certain street food that I have really enjoyed while I lived in India, Bangalore to be precise. 

It’s such a common scene there to see chaatwaalas pushing their carts around laden with veggies like cucumbers, raw mangoes, fresh limes etc and fruits like pineapple , papaya, watermelon, oranges etc and ofcourse other types of chaat and they serve these veggies/fruits by simply sprinkling on some salt and red chilly powder  or some chaat masala and may I say, its broadens the taste of these fruits and veggies to a different level? Yes, it does!! (The red chilly powder is mostly for the veggies)

So after a memory flash-wave, I decided to do the same for these homegrown, juicy and ripe cucumbers. All you need are fresh cucumbers, salt and red chilli powder. First rub your finger on the open face of the sliced cucumber to moisten your fingertip and press into the salt and red chilli powder and lightly rub them onto the cucumber slice and the take a big bite and feel your tastebuds flow…seriously, you must try it. You can moderate the amount of red chili powder as per your taste.

I tried the same with Salt and Black Pepper powder and I must say it did not taste all that great as how it does with red chilli powder. If you aren’t very keen on using red chilli powder, try with Paprika. It might tone down the spice but seal in all the flavors for this simple, lipsmacking and must I say ‘Healthy’ snack.  Or else another option would be to use Chaat masala.

I din't know what exactly this was called so I'm just calling it an Indian style cucumber chaat!

Indian Style fresh Cucumber chaat

You’ll need

Fresh Cucumbers – 3 or 4 or more

Salt – to taste

Red Chilli powder/Paprika – 1 tsp (use as needed)

Chaat masala (optional)

Directions

1.  Wash, peel and cut up the cucumbers into halves first and then each half into quarters.

2.  Moisten your fingertip slightly (just rub your fingertip over the cucumber slices) and mildly press into some salt and red chilli powder (or one at a time) and rub them over the cucumber slices. Enjoy!

3.  Substitute red chilli powder with Chaat masala powder if the spice level doesn’t suit you.

I even had this for my morning breakfast today, ya I’m just that crazy about it. We have several more Cucumbers left and I already know what’s in future for them. So, do you want to try some and get your tastebuds flowing? :-)

 Have a lovely Summer everyone! 

-Manju