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Fast Day Recipe - Cucumber Radish Pressed Salad

All about Macrobiotic or Pressed Salads and how to make a Cucumber and Radish Pressed Salad (87 calories). Perfect for fast days of the 5-2 Diet.
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Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Total Time 40 minutes
Servings: 1 number
Cuisine: asian
Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients
  

  • 100 grams radish Peeled and thinly sliced
  • 100 grams cucumber Peeled, deseeded and thinly sliced
  • 1/2 Lemon
  • 1/4 tsp Salt
  • 1/8 tsp Red chilli powder
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper Ground
  • 1/4 tsp Mustard seeds
  • 1/4 tsp Cumin seeds
  • 3 - 4 Curry leaves (optional)

Method
 

  1. In a bowl, mix the sliced radish, cucumber and chopped salad greens.
  2. Add salt, red chilli powder, ground black pepper and massage this well into the vegetable using your hands.
  3. Place this in a large bowl, and keep a heavy plate on top of this, such that the plate directly presses on the salad. Keep a heavy weight such as a mortar-pestle or a filled water bottle on top of this. Keep aside for a minimum of 30 minutes to a maximum of 2 hours. Ensure that you leave this on the countertop and not in the fridge.
  4. After 30 minutes, drain all excess water, toss in juice of half a lemon and remove to a serving plate.
  5. Heat a small pan or a tempering ladle. Once hot, add the cumin and mustard seeds along with curry leaves. Once the seeds crackle, transfer it over the salad.

Notes

If this is not for a fast day, use 1 tsp coconut oil or mustard oil for tempering the spices and curry leaves. You can also drizzle some raw extra virgin olive oil over the salad.
The pressed vegetables have a tangy flavour with a slight crunch from the curing. The seeds add little bites of crunch and impart their nutty flavours to the salad.
If you haven't tried a pressed salad before, I urge you to try it out. You'll end up making these on a fairly regular basis!
This salad makes a perfect Fast Day Salad recipe without any added oil.