Fattoush: Mixed Herb and Toasted Bread Salad
Anissa Helou, cookbook author and chef
“If there is one dish that speaks of both Lebanese and Syrian terroir (I am half Lebanese half Syrian), it’s fattoush, a salad where the ingredients speak of the fertility of the Levantine terroir, producing an abundance of fresh produce from the hard wheat used to make pita, to the herbs that are an essential part of both cuisines, to the salad vegetables that grow plentifully. Not to mention the sumac, a lemony ‘spice’, that grows wild in the mountains and that is the main seasoning and the olive oil extracted from olives picked off trees that grow practically everywhere that is not desert.”
INGREDIENTS
Serves 6
1 medium pita bread, opened at the seam to have two disks, toasted in a hot oven until golden brown, broken into bite-sized pieces
3 tablespoons sumac
80 ml extra virgin olive oil
2 gem lettuces (400 g), outer damaged leaves discarded, cut across into 1 cm strips
2 bunches spring onions (100 g), trimmed, thinly sliced
4 to 6 mini cucumbers (300 g), sliced in medium-thin half circles
300 g cherry tomatoes, quartered
1 bunch flat-leaf parsley (200 g), most of the stalks discarded, coarsely chopped
1/2 bunch mint (100 g), leaves stripped off the stalks, coarsely chopped
1/2 bunch purslane (100 g), leaves only
Sea salt
RECIPE
Put the pieces of toasted bread in a bowl. Sprinkle the sumac over the bread. Add the oil
and mix well. This will stop the bread from sogging up quickly after it is mixed with the salad. Taste the bread to see if it is salty. Some sumac has a little salt mixed in. Put the prepared salad ingredients in a large salad bowl. Add the seasoned toasted bread and mix well. Add salt to taste. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Serve immediately.
