Over the weekend, winter took a break and the nice California weather kicked in. It just so happened that that same weekend both my parents and in laws were coming over for a little bbq. I had seen this recipe on a cooking show and was waiting for the right excuse to try it. This was it! A cucumber-lime martini.
How to prep the cucumber-lime martini
While the meat was grilling, I whipped out my blender and threw together this yummy cocktail. It was pretty easy to do. The hardest part was straining the pulp from the juice, but if you have a juicer, then that part will be done for you…you just need to deal with cleaning the juicer then.
This cucumber martini was the perfect way to start a bbq. Very refreshing. The only thing is that there was a little bitter aftertaste. I think it was from the cucumber peel. Maybe I didn’t peel it well enough. But other than that, it was amazing!
Lessons Learned:
- Make sure all of the bitter peel is off the cucumber or try using cucumbers without bitter peel like English or Persian.
- Make sure there is no liquid or ice in your glass when you dip the rim into the chili-lime powder when you go back for seconds. You get a big glob of chili-powder that doesn’t stick to your rim.
- ¼ cup water
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- ½ lime, cut into wedges for garnish
- 3 Tbsp chili-lime powder (I used Tajin, but you can use pico de gallo or maybe lucas)
- 2 cucumbers, peeled & deseeded
- 4 cups of water
- Juice of 2 limes
- ¼ cup vodka (I think I doubled this for my second batch)
- Ice
- Combine water and sugar in a small sauce pan over medium-high heat. Occasionally stir mixture until sugar has dissolved (this is called a simple syrup).
- Put the chili-lime powder on a small plate. Prepare your glasses by rubbing the rim of the glass with a lime wedge. Dip the rim of the glass in the chili-lime powder. Add ice to your glass.
- In a blender, combine the water/sugar mixture, cucumbers, water, and lime juice. Blend until smooth. Pour the mixture through a strainer into a pitcher. Extract as much juice from the pulp as possible. Add vodka and mix.
- Pour your mixture into prepared glasses and enjoy!
(adapted from Marcela Valladolid’s recipe found here)
