Fattoush

Recently I bought Jerusalem,  the fabulous collaboration between Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi. It may well be the first cookbook I’ve ever bought for myself, and I’m thrilled, I think Tamimi and Ottolenghi really do hope that hummus can pave the way to peace in the Middle East. It is also full of salads, and as my current resolution is to eat all the salad, I made the fattoush recipe from this book (mind you, I ate it alongside their hummus shawarma).

The dressing for this salad is made with buttermilk, or you can mix milk and yogurt and leave it to rest for a couple of hours, which is what I did.

Adapted from Jerusalem.

Ingredients:

Dressing:
About 200 grams greek yogurt
About 200 mils of full cream milk
Mix these together in a bowl or jug and put in fridge for a couple of hours, then add:
2 cloves garlic, crushed or very finely chopped
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon sea salt

Salad:
4 radishes, thinly sliced
1 punnet cherry tomatoes, halved
2 lebanese cucumbers, diced
1 spring onion, finely sliced
About 2 tablespoons of mint, finely sliced
About 1/3 cup parsley, roughly chopped

1 tablespoon sumac, to garnish

1 piece of stale or toasted pita bread, or yesterday’s turkish bread, torn into bite-sized pieces

Make your yogurt/milk mixture and give it a couple of hours in the fridge. Then mix in the rest of the dressing ingredients.

Chop all the vegetables and herbs.

In a large bowl put your torn up stale bread, and pour over the dressing. Add all the vegetables and herbs. Mix well. Sprinkle sumac generously over the salad and serve straight away. If using pita, the bread will start to be less chewy and more soggy, so don’t mix the salad too long before serving.