Your Next Side Dish: Spicy Cucumber Tomato Salad

Put that knife away! The cucumbers in this fun salad are prepared by beating them with a stick. Spicy and nutty with a citrusy punch from the Sichuan pepper, this cucumber and tomato salad is loaded with potent flavors. It comes together in mere minutes and makes for a delightfully refreshing side salad that's perfect for your next Asian themed dinner.

The trick is to pound the cucumber with a rolling pin. It's a great way to relieve some stress, and it also breaks the cucumbers up into bite-size pieces. The jagged surfaces of the pounded cucumber absorb the dressing like a sponge, which means there's no need to wait around while they marinate.

While I used tomatoes that were big enough they needed to be sliced, if you use cherry tomatoes, you could literally put this together with nothing but a plastic bag and a stick; something to think about the next time you go camping. Although the dressing for this salad was inspired by the original bang-bang chicken (which was also pounded with a stick), this would be equally good with a lemongrass, lime and fish sauce dressing, or a whole grain mustard and black pepper vinaigrette.

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Marc Matsumoto is a culinary consultant and recipe repairman who shares his passion for good food through his website norecipes.com. For Marc, food is a life long journey of exploration, discovery and experimentation and he shares his escapades through his blog in the hopes that he inspires others to find their own culinary adventures. Marcs been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, and has made multiple appearances on NPR and the Food Network.