This is one of the most popular salads in the Middle East. Another popular salad is tabouleh. Fattoush is very well known in my culture and is always present on my dining table. It is very healthy and tastes very good. When we have family over and make a big dinner, it's 100% sure that this salad will be there. You can eat it as an appetizer or in your main plate. The Middle Eastern tradition is having a lot of food on the table―a lot more than we can eat―so having more than one type of salad is very common. For me, personally, my mother makes it with almost every meal she prepares for us. It's her way of making us eat the most vegetables possible; she always insists on me putting some on my plate or tells me, “Don’t forget to put salad.” This way of thinking is typical of the Middle East because they always want the people who are eating to eat everything they cooked for the dinner, even if they’re full. This salad has been on my dining table for all my life and will hopefully always stay. Its original flavour and some original ingredients make it one of the best tasting salads in the Middle East and even the world!
Recipe
Ingredients
– 2 cucumbers
– 2 tomatoes
– 6 radishes
– 3 green onions
– 1 green bell pepper
– 2-3 cloves garlic
– about 7 leaves romaine lettuce
– ½ cup parsley
– ½ cup mint
– ¼ cup lemon juice or to the taste
– ¼ cup olive oil
– 1 tsp vinegar
– 1 tsp salt
– 1 tsp sumac
– 2 pita breads
(you can find this at Adonis)
Procedure
- Cut all the vegetables into bite-size pieces and toss them into a bowl.
- In a separate and smaller bowl, mix lemon juice, olive oil, vinegar, salt, and sumac. Mix well.
- Fry or bake the pita bread for about 1 minute. When done, break them up into little pieces and add over the vegetables in big bowl.
- Add the vinaigrette made in the little bowl to the vegetables.
- Mix well and enjoy!
Photo source: http://www.saidaonline.com/en/newsgfx/fatoush-saidaonline.jpg
