These cucumber cups were another item that I took along to orphan's Christmas. It was good to have a slightly healthier item to the other things on offer.
I did feel a bit guilty at the wastage of the cucumber that was scooped out of the cups. It would have been good to have utilised the cucumber flesh in a salad. Alas, salad was not on our Christmas menu.
By the way, happy new year! I hope that you ushered in 2008 with good food and drink, but more importantly, with good company.
Beef and roasted tomatoes in cucumber cups
Inspired by a recipe for Thai beef salad in cucumber cups, seen in Kitchen Classics: Picnic hamper
Makes about 20
Marinade
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
1/4 cup soy sauce
Roasted tomatoes
250g punnet of cherry tomatoes, quartered
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
Sesame oil
Mirin
250g beef eye fillet
4 Lebanese cucumbers
Combine the marinade ingredients in a bowl. Put the beef eye fillet in a non-metallic bowl, pour in the marinade and refrigerate for 2 hours, or overnight. Allow the meat to return to room temperature before cooking.
Preheat the oven to 160 degree C. Place the tomato quarters in a baking dish and sprinkle with the sugar and salt. Bake for 40 minutes, or unitl the tomatoes begin to blacken at the edges and dry out. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Place the roated tomatoes into a bowl, add a few drops of sesame oil and a dash of mirin and mix to combine.
Heat some oil in a frying pan over high heat and cook to your liking. Set aside to cool, then slice thinly.
Cut off the ends of the cucumbers and cut into 3cm thick slices (for decorative purposes you could peel strips of skin off the cucumber before cutting into slices). Using a melon baller, scoop out the flesh from each slice to make a "cup" about 1 cm thick.
Fill each cup with some beef and top with roasted tomatoes.
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