Marinated Cucumber And Green Bean Salad - cooking recipe

Ingredients

1/2 cucumber, peeled (about 6 - 7-inch)
3 ounces green beans, very thin and young
1/2 cup spring onion, chopped
3 tablespoons cider vinegar (or use white wine vinegar)
2 -3 tablespoons superfine sugar (castor sugar)
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon flaked sea salt (use less if using table salt)
coarse black pepper

Preparation

First make the marinade by whisking together the vinegar, sugar, mustard, pepper. Don't add all the sugar at once: taste it first. We don't like it too acidic, so adjust to your taste.
Top the washed beans, keep whole, and parboil for 30 seconds if it's the fine, pencil-thin beans. For thicker beans, parboil for a minute. Rinse under cold water. If not very thin, slice them in two along their lengths.
With a potato peeler, peel ribbons from the cucumber, on all sides, until you reach the inside seeds. Discard the centre seed part. Roll the ribbons roughly.
Mix the vegetables plus the chopped spring onions in a bowl, and add the marinade and salt. Leave for 10 - 30 minutes, turning a few times.
Lift the salad out of the marinade (the cucumber will have shed some water too), and leave on a scrunch of kitchen paper just so most of the marinade is absorbed.
Pile on a plate, add the piquante pepper pieces if using, and sprinkle with coarse black pepper.