Fattoush

For day 6 of the marathon, it is Fattoush, a Lebanese bread salad. Pita bread is deep fried or oven baked, as I did, and added to the vegetables to make the salad. The magic ingredient for this salad seems to be Sumac, a spice from the Mediterranean. It supposedly has a lemony flavor and on searching for a substitute for this spice, I found lemon zest to be the closest in taste.

Most of the recipes online used lettuce and I found a recipe that did not use it. I had already bought lettuce for this preparation and hence decide to use it. The next time I prepare Fattoush, I might use very little lettuce or skip it altogether. I followed Kalyn’s recipe and made ¼th of the recipe.

Source: Kalyn’s Kitchen
Total Time: 15 - 20 minutes
Preparation: 10 minutes
Baking Time: 8-10 minutes
Serves: 1-2 (depending on how you serve it)

Ingredients:

• 2 Pita Bread
• 1 big Garlic Clove
• ¼ tsp. Salt (adjust to taste)
• ½ Lime or 2 tbsp. Lime Juice
• ¼ tsp. Sumac + more sprinkle on the salad (I used lemon zest)
• 2 tbsp. Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• ½ Lettuce head or approx. 2 ½ cups bite size chopped Lettuce
• 1 tbsp. Green Onion chopped
• 6 Cherry Tomatoes diced
• 1 mini Cucumber diced or ¼ - ⅓ cup diced Cucumber
• 1 Carrot or ¼ cup sliced Carrot
• 2 tbsp. chopped Mint
• 2 tbsp. chopped Cilantro (recipe called for parsley)

Preparation:

• Preheat the oven to 400F.
• Cut pita bread to ¾” – 1” strips and arrange them on a baking tray and bake for 8-10 minutes until crisp. I baked for 7 minutes and while tearing or crumbling the bread into smaller pieces I noticed some of the pieces were not crispy enough. Since oven was still hot, I put the crumbles bread back into the hot oven for 2-4 minutes. My oven was off but still hot toast the crumbles.
• Crush garlic clove with some salt in mortar pestle or crush the garlic with a knife. Take it in a small bowl, add lemon juice, sumac or lemon zest, oil and whisk it. Keep it aside.
• Wash the lettuce and cut it into bite size pieces. Dry it in a salad spinner or dry it in paper towels as I did.
• Cut tomatoes and leave it in a colander or a strain to drain the juices.
• Cut rest of the vegetables and herbs and put them in a bowl.
• Add tomatoes, lettuce, ½ of the vinaigrette and toss it. Add crumbled pita bread and remaining vinaigrette and toss it again.
• Let the salad sit for few minutes for the flavors to blend into the pita bread.
• Sprinkle some lemon zest or Sumac on the salad and serve it.

Note

• Other vegetables that can be added to the salad are chopped bell peppers and radish.
• I cut cherry tomatoes into two but I felt cutting it into pieces might have been better.
• This salad was a little lemon and adjust lemon/lime juice according to your taste. I like lemon and it was perfect for me.

Recipes posted this day in 2009 - Lisa's Black & Yellow Chickpeas Sweet & Spicy Sauce and in 2010 - Egg Roll
Recipes I posted this month in 2009, in 2010 and in 2011.
Blogging Marathon: To know more about the various themes and participating bloggers for this marathon, checkout the blogging marathon page on Srivalli's