Middle Eastern mezze no.7: Fattoush

For those of you who haven’t heard of this delicious salad, Wikipedia offers a detailed explanation:

Fattoush is a Levantine bread salad made from toasted or fried pieces of pita bread (khubz 'arabi) combined with mixed greens and other vegetables ... To make fattoush, cooks use seasonal produce, mixing different vegetables and herbs according to taste, while making use of pitas that have gone stale ... Sumac is usually used to give fattoush its sour taste.

As you can gather this is not an easy dish to write a recipe for since the only constant ingredient is bread, and even with that there is a choice, albeit an obvious one. Toasted stale bread versus crispy, crunchy, shards of golden goodness; you know which gets my vote. 

As for the vegetables, all the fattoush I’ve tried have had tomato, cucumber and onion in them, but they can also have peppers, radish, lettuce, cabbage, carrot... the list goes on.  Mint is the usual choice when it comes to herbs, although I have had it with flat leaf parsley too.

Feta and olives are sometimes added, but I find this makes it too much like a Greek salad and prefer to leave the fried bread to steal the show. This leaves me with a difficult choice because feta and olives go so well with the rest of the mezze... so I chose not to make one; if I make a fattoush, I do a bowl of feta and olives as another part of the selection. Problem solved.

Traditionally, the dressing is made with lemon and olive oil, although I sometimes use red wine vinegar. I also use much less garlic than is used traditionally, opting for one small clove. I met a Lebanese girl last year who thought this was craziness. She also told me the dressing must be mixed first in a separate bowl to allow the garlic to permeate it. I have conceded to the second rule, but I am not willing to brave the 4 cloves she recommended; I like my personal space, but I want people to be able to sit in the same room as me.

This salad serves four as a side salad or six to eight as part of a main mezze selection. It also makes a great starter for four served with fried halloumi or as a main with slices of grilled lamb or cutlets. 

Ingredients

For the dressing
1-2 tbsp olive oil, or to taste
Juice ½ lemon, or to taste
1 small clove garlic, finely chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

For the salad
1 pita bread, stale
Light vegetable oil for frying
3 tomatoes
1 lebanese (or small) cucumber
¼ onion (red or brown), finely sliced
Small handful mint or flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
½ tsp sumac

Method

Mix the ingredients for the dressing in a small bowl, adjust the levels as necessary and put to one side.

Tear the pita into small pieces. Heat some oil (at least 2 inches) in a large, deep saucepan over a high heat. Test the temperature of the oil with a small bit of the bread, when it starts bubbling fiercely it is hot enough. Fry the bread one handful at a time until golden brown, removing with a slotted spoon onto kitchen paper. You may not need all the bread, but leftovers will keep nicely in an airtight container.

Dice or slice the tomatoes and cucumbers into large chunks and put in a bowl with the onion and sumac. Toss with the dressing.

Just before serving, add a handful or two of the fried bread pieces and garnish with the mint or parsley.

Comments

[Daniel A. Wood]

Wonderful post, very informative. You must continue your writing and I will be here reading your blog quite a lot in the future.

[Vix]

Thanks Daniel, I am glad you are enjoying the blog. Always lovely to get positive feedback.