Description: Easy and quick to prepare, yet the delicious flavour of miso amazingly matches with cucumbers. One of the popular Japanese side dishes. Cucumbers are not boring if you use the right seasonings. It is low-calorie and can be a refreshing appetizer or a side dish. You can beat the food while preparing. What a good way to release your stress.
Serves: 2
Cooking time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

• Cucumber – beaten then torn, 1 piece or 200g
• Sesame oil – ½ tablespoon
• Miso – ½ teaspoon
• Sesame seeds- ½ tablespoon
• Soy sauce – ½ tablespoon
• Dry chili – chopped, 1/2 piece (according to personal taste)
• Garlic – pureed, 1 clove

Method

1. Mix all the seasonings well in a small bowl.
2. Beat the cucumber with a rolling pin until it gets cracked then tear it into bite-size pieces. (Do not beat too much to the point the cucumber is completely crushed)
3. Soak the cucumber in the sauce and mix well.

Nutritional Values Per Serving

Kcal	Protein	Fat	Carbs	Fibre	Sugars	Salt	Saturated Fat
69.1	1.7g	5.1g	5.4g	1.0g	1.9g	0.7g	0.7g
3.5%	3.3%	7.3%	2.1%	3.2%	2.1%	11.5%	3.7%

Nutritional Tips

Cucumbers are well known for the “cucumber diet”, “cucumber stick”, etc. As most of you probably know, they are really low in calories (15 kcal per 100g), low carbs, protein, sodium, fat and cholesterol. They provide small amounts of vitamin C, vitamin K, magnesium, and potassium. Due to the water content in cucumbers (95%), they help stay hydrated, especially during summer. A cup of sliced cucumber is almost equal to a glass of water!

For some people, just biting cucumber works but not for all people. This recipe helps make the cucumber tastier (I feel like the cucumber changes to something else lol !) by adding just a bit of seasoning including miso paste. When you add the cucumber, it releases its water, so you can keep the remaining sauce and add more cucumber later on if you wish. You may eat this as a side dish or even a healthy Japanese-style snack. So this is one of the good recipes for weight control snacks when you are bored of plain vegetable sticks! Alternatively, filling up with low-carb/calories vegetables is a good way for people with diabetes, especially type-2, to control their blood glucose (Asif, Journal of Education and Health Promotion, 2014; 3: 1.). However, if you consume a large amount, be mindful how much miso/oil you will be taking. As sometimes people get obsessed by just eating one single thing all day, every day for so many days, you may leave the sauce and not consume it (to avoid eating too much fat/salt). As I always say, balance is the key! 🙂

would like to introduce one more thing about cucumbers. You may have seen some cucumber dish named “Kappa Maki (roll)”. “Kappa” is an amphibious Japanese demon in Japanese mythology. They are usually described as green, human-like creatures, child size, limbs are webbed and the back is turtle-like, plate on top of its head, living in a pond or river, and they like cucumber. Therefore some dishes are named Kappa for cucumber. Kappa does not mean cucumber originally, however, it is associated with this story.