Fattouche Salad
Here's the list of ingredients:
- A whole head of romaine lettuce
- A whole cucumber (english cucumbers are nice too -- they have smaller seeds)
- A tomato, diced
- A red onion, pickled, and some shallots or the tops of the red onion
- A handful of radishes, sliced
- Juice from half of a lemon
- A huge handful of parsley roughly chopped
- A bunch of fresh mint, finely sliced
- A few pinches of dried oregano
- A few cloves of garlic, minced
- A piece of pita bread, toasted until crispy and then broken into small pieces
- Salt, pepper, and some extra virgin olive oil (the good stuff)
Start by washing the lettuce, and cutting in into strips. A salad spinner is nice here. It's impossible to dress lettuce with oil when it is wet. Slice, mince, and dice the main ingredients like the cucumber, garlic, radishes and onion.
To slice mint easily, stack the leaves and then roll them into a cigar shape. Slice into long strips. It's called a chiffonade and works well. If you want to watch a Youtube video showing you how to to it, go for it.
Add the herbs to the bowl, and slice the tomato. Some folks take the seeds out but I leave them in. Up to you. More work if you take them out. Drizzle in the lemon juice, and toast the pita until crunchy. I use my regular toaster and just cut the pita bread into quarters so it will fit. You can also use an oven, but that's overkill for one pita.
Take the bulb of the red onion, and slice it into rings. You can stuff it into a mason jar with some vinegar, salt and pepper for an hour or over night to pickle it a bit, or you can go raw. Either way, it's tasty.
Add your salt (I like a sea salt, or a kosher salt), fresh cracked black pepper and a few lugs of your really good extra virgin olive oil. Break the pita chips into the salad, and toss well.
