The Dish That Took Me By Surprise (and ended up with me naked)

There are certain dishes I've come across in life that on first appearances don't seem spectacular. A set of ingredients that, on paper, shouldn't create endless questions in your mind which are then instinctively blurted out to a sometimes "not-quite-as-excited-as-you-are" type crowd. This dish is one of those for me. It's a simple one; cucumber, onion, lemon and salt. Lots of salt. But the amount of acidity in there, in combination with the salt, the crunch and punch of the onion, all while still giving you that freshness of the cucumber, it's just an incredible combination in my opinion. And perfect for a summer salad to go with a BBQ brisket or some grilled fish.

Small in ingredients list, but huge on flavour

Seafood chowder in a Santiago food market

I first 'discovered' it when I was 17 on a school trip to Chile. That trip was full of new tastes for me, from trying alpaca and guinea pig, an introduction to some serious churrascarias, insanely hot chillis and some of the best seafood chowders I've had, still to this day. But none of them surpassed this salad. I find food to be one of those great examples of the story and the situation playing just as big a role in your taste buds memories as the actual flavour of the food. I think this is one of those cases for me. It was made (this is from memory, I really wish I'd kept an Adrian Mole style teenage diary to read back on) by a park ranger in the Yerba Loca National Park, a few hours drive North East of Santiago. To add some more back story our initial plans for a community project in Chile had been to volunteer at a school near Santiago, but for reasons lost in translation, this had to be scrapped. As 17 year old's most of us wanted the bright lights of the capital and the opportunity to get as pissed up as often as we could. So when an alternative project of going to help out in a national park a few hours drive away, with no electricity or heating on the cards, in snow-covered mountains, there were a few heels dragged. I know it sounds idyllic, but as I said we were teenagers at the time. Unsurprisingly it turned out to be an incredible experience.

Whilst up in the mountains we were helping to restore old stone walls, known as las pircas. I only know this as I still speak with Victor, the park ranger, from time to time on Facebook, albeit via Google translate (he doesn't need to know my impeccable Spanish is all a veil behind my embarrassing lack of language skills). I'm sure my memories are a little rose-tinted but the days were adventures, filled with hard work (shifting and digging up huge old rocks to plug holes in rapidly deteriorating walls, was a first dabble into daily progressive overload for a young me) as well as hikes out into the surrounding mountains, followed by evening feasts.

Marco, who I'm giving credit to for the salad (I think)

And it was during one of these evening feasts that Marco, one of our guides, knocked up this salad for the first time. I still get a little bit excited each time I think about it, and although I think I've managed to re-create a pretty good version, nothing will quite surpass that first one (there is innuendo in there somewhere). I recall thinking "That is a hell of a lot salt going in there, not sure about that Marco!". Well, salt on my face as the old saying goes. It is still to this day one of my go-to salads and is always a crowd-pleaser! Oh and we also decided to strip off for a semi-naked photoshoot in the snow, enjoy the header image of my pre-pubescent body. Recipe for this salad below.

You'll need:

• 2 large onions (I've experimented with both red & white, and I actually quite like a mix of both)

• 1 large cucumber

• Juice of 1 lemon

• 1 + 1/2 tsp sea salt

1. Using either a mandolin or a sharp knife slice your onions and cucumber as thinly as you can.

2. Combine in a bowl with the lemon juice and salt and mix it all together with your hands, giving it a little squish, ensuring the salt & lemon juice are thoroughly mixed in.

3. Taste and then adjust to your tastes, you might want a little more lemon juice or a little more salt to balance it out. Taste, adjust, taste again and see what you think!

4. Leave in the fridge for around 30-45 mins before you eat.