I’m currently reading a handful of food books — I do that all the time. The one I’m poking at today, though, is Eric Gower’s The Breakaway Cook. (He’s also the gentleman who writes the Breakaway Cook blog — tasty stuff over there — go check him out!)

Anyway, so I have this pile of cucumbers because my yard is being overly productive, and one of the recipes in The Breakaway Cook is for “Moroccan Morokyu”. This is basically a variant on Japanese morokyu, which is simply cucumbers dipped in yellow miso paste and eaten as a snack.

Me, I’m thinking any interesting way to eat cucumbers is a good deal right now, especially because it’s hot as blazes here and our A/C is down, and cucumbers are nice and refreshing.

This Moroccan version calls for pomegranate molasses, which I don’t currently have in the house, and yellow miso paste, which I don’t currently have in the house. Hm. No problem, right? I have white miso paste, so that’s fine, and I have … hmm … want something sour and sweet. I have tamarind concentrate! That’ll work, right?

Actually, it did, but tamarind concentrate is very sour, and I suspect not as sweet as pomegranate molasses. And the dip wanted a bass note that it wasn’t getting. So I grabbed the regular molasses. That worked!

Tamarind Morokyu

Inspired by Eric Gower’s Moroccan Morokyu

  • lemon cucumbers, well scrubbed to remove the spines and sliced into eighths
  • 1 generous Tbsp. white miso
  • 1 tsp. tamarind concentrate
  • 1/2 tsp (or to taste, I didn’t really measure) blackstrap molasses
  • water to thin

Combine miso, tamarind concentrate, and molasses in a small bowl, and stir to combine. Add water bit-by-bit and stir, to thin to a smooth and creamy dip. The dip will be an earthy dark-brown color that contrasts prettily with the cucumbers, but might be intimidating if you don’t know that it’s tasty. It’s tasty!  Dip the cucumbers in the tamarind-miso sauce and enjoy.

This is strong stuff! A little goes a long way, but it’s good!