Fattoush
Fattoush is such a simple delight. Roughly chop the veggies and drizzle with lemon juice, oil and plenty of sumac. If you haven't heard of sumac it's time to educate yourself on one of the most unexpected of spices. Sumac is a deep red/purple spice with a flavour similar to lemon. As you imagine, delicious on salads. it's one of the main flavours in Middle Eastern dishes like M'sukhan and Fatteh Betinjaan, in fact, I have to squeeze packets of it in to my suitcase when I go back to the UK because my cousin and her husband have a cafe serving Middle Eastern cuisine. It's definitely available in the UK but it's much cheaper in this region.
How you prepare this salad is totally up to you. You really just need the fundamental flavours and textures and you're good to go.
Recipe
FATTOUSH
Traditionally one would use Romaine lettuce or something with more bite than baby spinach leaves. To be honest, the only reason I've gone for baby spinach is because that is what is in my fridge today.
But the crunch factor doesn't just come from one ingredient in this salad, it's from pretty much all of them. Heck, even the ration of veggies to lettuce doesn't matter. Go with your gut or family preference, just keep the general flavours the same.
INGREDIENTS
Cumcumber
Tomatoes
Red or green onion
Leaves
Mint
(radish, red pepper etc)
Stale Arabic bread
1 tbsp oil
*za'atar (optional)
DRESSING
4 tbsp lemon juice
1 garlic clove crushed
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp sumac
METHOD
Pre heat oven to 180°C.
Line a baking tray and rip the stale bread on to it (bite sized pieces)
Drizzle with oil and sprinkle over some za'atar if using. massage well in to the bread and bake for 10-15 minutes. Be careful near the end, the bread can suddenly burn.
Roughly chop all the vegetable in to bite sized pieces and throw them all in a bowl.
Put dressing ingredients in a jar. Shake it like a Polaroid picture.
Dress salad and stuff your faces.
