I happened to have one cucumber that I had to use up and in my inbox on my computer a recipe came in from the New York Post from Yotam Ottolenghi called Grilled Cucumbers with Tomato-Cardamon Dressing & Mozzarella. Incase you didn’t know Yotam Ottolenghi is a multi award wining chef, restauranteur, and cookbook author. He is one of the most gifted chefs anywhere. If he puts out a recipe it is always worth trying. I wanted to do his recipe but I had to do several different substitutions due to what I had around the house. There was only one thing from the original recipe I wanted to change. I didn’t want to leave whole cardamom shells in the food…Maybe it does infuse better flavor….but I just don’t like cardamom shells in my food. The only problem that I had is that I couldn’t get grill marks to stay on the cucumbers. I did have nice medium light brown grill marks but somehow they disappeared. Maybe instead of a grill pan that I used maybe you can get grill marks to stay on from an outdoor grill.

Ingredients for around 4 servings

8 oz cheery tomatoes

7 Tablespoons olive oil

4 garlic cloves – peeled, sliced thin

1 teaspoon white miso

3 bay leaves

1/2 teaspoon cardamom seeds – crushed

1/4 teaspoon paprika

1/4 teaspoon cayenne

1/4 heaping teaspoon sea salt

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 Tablespoon lime juice

optional – 1 Tablespoon date syrup (I thought my tomatoes weren’t sweet enough so I added a Tablespoon of date syrup. If you tomatoes are sweet don’t add the date syrup)

1 cucumber – peeled, cut long ways, remove seeds, cut in half, cut each half longways in 6 pieces

1/2 a very small head of cabbage – remove core, cut in 3 or 4 slices

1 Tablespoon olive oil (this is for spraying or sprinkling on the cucumber and cabbage)

sea salt – to taste

ground black pepper – to taste

4 1/2 oz cheese – I used caciotta cheese but buffalo mozzarella is recommended – torn

2 Tablespoon fresh cilantro – chopped

Directions

In a large fry pan on medium high heat add the tomatoes, oil, garlic, miso, bay leaves. cardamom, paprika, cayenne, sea salt. Stir. Leave on heat until it bubbles.

Turn down to medium low. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Taste and decide if you need to add the date syrup (or honey). Stir in the lime juice and set to the side.

Use either your outdoor grill or a grill pan in a 420 degree F oven.

Lightly spray or sprinkle the cabbage and cucumbers with oil. Season them lightly with salt and pepper. Lightly grill the cucumbers. You don’t want mushy cucumbers so they can only take around 2 minutes at the most. My cabbage was perfect in 15 minutes on the grill pan in a 420 f oven. Timing can differ.

Transfer the vegetables to your tomato pan. Top with torn cheese and the cilantro and serve. This dish can be served warm or room temperature.

A Special THANKS!!!! To Yotam Ottolenghi and The New York Times for another FORKING Amazing recipe so that I could come up with what I got here.