Have you ever had a bitter cucumber? I’ve had this happen to me more times than I care to count. Salads and sandwiches were ruined from this foreign bitter taste. I complained to my mom about this and of course in her infinite wisdom, she shared with me her secret to delicious cucumbers: you have to ‘milk’ your cucumbers. Or in her Chinese words; you have to draw out the ‘poison’. Sounds terrifying right?
It turns out cucumber skins have a compound called cucurbitacin. According to Gardening Know How, Cucurbatacin is found in the Cucurbit family of plants including cucumber, squash, and zucchini. The chemical is found in the stem and leaves but sometimes can make its way into the fruit.
So how do you remove the bitterness? Well, it’s quite simple and not scary at all. All you need to do is rub the cucumber against itself. Here are the steps.
Steps.
- With a knife, cut both ends of the cucumber.
- Take one of the end pieces and place it back on the cucumber so that the cut surfaces meet. Then gently rub it back and forth. The friction agitates the edges of the skin and will cause a milky liquid to come out. Rub for about 20-30 seconds and then rinse away the milky liquid.
- Repeat on the other end of the cucumber.
I tried and no milky liquid came out. What did I do wrong?
That’s ok. That means the cucumber isn’t bitter.
Alternative Method:
You can also guarantee yourself that a cucumber isn’t bitter by peeling all the skin away. This works well with recipes that specifically require taking peeling the skin. However, you lose out on the nutrients in the skin. So I don’t do this unless a recipe specifically calls for it.
That’s it. Give it a try and let me know what you think.
