Chinese cucumber coriander salad

Often less is more, and this cucumber salad is a great example of this. Moose had tasted this salad years ago at La Maison du Nord, a tiny Chinese restaurant in Montreal, always packed with Concordia University students. He raved so much about it that last time we were in the area, we had to try it (although I admit, I had some doubts - how can cucumber salad be this good?). Unfortunately Moose's salad was no longer on the menu, so we explained to the barely English-speaking waiter what we wanted. What came out of the kitchen was even better than what he remembered! And I have to admit that he was right, this dish was amazing! We knew we had to replicate it at home. So, after many attempts, here's our version, based loosely on this recipe.

Ingredients (salad):
- 1 large English cucumber (about 500 g), chopped into ~3 mm slices.
- 1 Italian long hot pepper (spicy about 50 g chopped into ~1 mm slices, or less spicy 5 g finely chopped with knife), seeds removed
- 0.5 bunch coriander (about 50 g), coarsely chopped, including the stalk for better texture.
- 4 cloves garlic (15 g), chopped with a knife to avoid clumping
- 0.5 teaspoon red chili flakes

Ingredients (dressing):
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 3 teaspoons soy sauce
- 3 teaspoons sesame oil
- 6 teaspoons black Asian vinegar (Chinkiang vinegar)
- 2 teaspoons chili oil

- 5 drops of Maggi seasoning sauce (optional but recommended, MSG really improves the flavor)

Mix dressing ingredients in a small bowl. Prepare salad ingredients in a large bowl. Combine and toss. Cucumbers will only remain crunchy for a short period (30 minutes), so the salad should be consumed immediately. Ideally, cucumbers should be chilled in the refrigerator to give the salad a fresh, cool feel.

Italian long hot peppers are a heirloom variety of Capsicum annuum. They are about 10x less spicy than jalapeño pepper (500 Scovilles units as compared to 5000 for jalapeño pepper).

Final tossed salad.

Chopped cucumber.

Other ingredients.