German cucumber salad

Ingredients: Cucumbers, dill, salt and pepper, vinegar and oil.

Slice cucumber finely. Salt and leave for ten minutes then squeeze and drain off the excess water. Dress with finely chopped dill, a little vinegar and oil, and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Smashed cucumber salad

Ingredients: Cucumbers, garlic, sesame seeds, sesame oil, salt, sugar, rice vinegar, coriander

A chinese classic, this is super simple and really tasty. Wash a cucumber. Place it on a chopping board and whack it quite hard with a cleaver, a rolling pin or similar object. It should split, loosely, lengthwise. Now chop across the way so that it is cut into roughly 1cm pieces. Make a simple dressing from a clove of garlic finely chopped (two if you love garlic), 1.5 teaspoons light soy sauce, 0.5 teaspoon salt, a teaspoon of salt and a 0.75 tablespoons of rice vinegar. Mix with a teaspoon of toasted sesame seeds and a teaspoon of sesame oil (plus a teaspoon of chili oil if you like spice). Garnish with some chopped coriander.

Cucumber Raita

Grate a cucumber using a coarse grater. Mix with 1tsp salt and leave for 5 minutes then squeeze and drain. Mix with ½ cup of thick yoghurt and season with salt and pepper to taste. Top with a little ground cumin (if you have the time and the inclination, toast some cumin seeds in a small pan, then grind them in a pestle and mortar - the flavour will be much stronger). Serve with a lamb curry, a stew or alongside a barbecue. You can also add green chilli and/or finely chopped onions to the raita.