Lebanese- Inspired Salad

You’ll love this dish it has intense taste, a good level of sourness and some nice crunch, and it all mixes incredibly with the hummus. If you think about the crunch in the bread and the tangy dressing you can realise that it was inspired but the very famous Levant salad- fattoush.

So, grab yourself a romaine lettuce head coarsely cut, some tomatoes - diced, a skinless cucumber -diced, a couple of radishes – thinly sliced (I didn’t have those to use, but they work great). Mix the veggies together. 

Now for the crunch part: take some pita breads and carefully insert a knife in the middle in order to separate the two sides so you can cut the pita in half (basically, this bread is a like a giant, very thin, empty on the inside doughnut, that you want cut in half in order to obtain 2 slick sheets of bread). Use a brush or your fingers (whichever tastes better J) to very lightly coat the bread with some olive oil, then pop it in the pre-heated oven, high heat, for a minute, or until it reaches a dark brown color, similar to caramelized sugar. Remove the bread from the  oven and cut/brake it in to pieces for the salad. 

For the sour part, I mixed in some olive oil, about 2 tbs, the juice of half a lemon, 1 tbs of honey, a crushed garlic clove, some salt and pepper together (use a mortar and pestle to crush the garlic and mix the sauce in there), the result will be a tangy sauce that will counterbalance perfectly the rich hummus. For the traditional taste of fattoush, replace the lemon, or part of it with pomegranate molasses or juice. A different take would also be to add in even a couple of pomegranate seeds to the salad, that, besides giving great flavor to the sauce, also brings in for you some very nice, vibrant color.

And one last thing, the pita bread chips and some light aioli sauce= match made in heaven. 

Enjoy, 

Hummus

Ah, hummus, one of those foods that I just love to have around. It’s so versatile and keeps for long enough to be savored along side meats, vegetables or just plain and simple with some olive oil and pita bread. And seeing as I always keep in our fridge some tahini paste, that proved to be rather handy when we decided to have a nice hummus meal. This recipe is so easy that, literally, anyone can do it. 

Honestly, I think that hummus is one of those basic world-wide famous recipes that can be cooked, at different levels, of course, by both experienced or novice foodies (avoided to say chefs/cooks here because they can make hummus in their sleep). The main things that you need here are a food processor and tahini paste, which is basically a thick sesame paste that gives the flavor to the mashed chickpeas that make the body of the hummus: my idea is the more the better, and I love that slightly nutty, maybe a bit heavy taste to a tahini rich hummus. 

Of course, you need to balance that, and you use 2 things: garlic and lemon juice. For the chickpeas, you can either go with the canned, pre-boiled ones, in which case you can pop them straight into the blender/food processor, or you can boil you own. In this case, I suggest leaving the beans to soak in cold water over night, it really helps the boiling. You’ll know the chickpeas are done when you take one out and you can easily mash it with your fingers (I have to say here, I honestly don’t think chickpeas can be over boiled or that would be bad for hummus). So, chickpeas in, add the tahini paste (for 500 grams of boiled beans I put in 6 big tbs. of paste), the juice of 1 and a half lemon, 3 crushed garlic cloves, 4 tbs. of olive oil, about 2-3 tbs. of salt and water (you can use some of the water you cooked the chickpeas in).

Blitz everything together and taste frequently for taste and check for thickness, adding more water if necessary (you want it to have a thick oatmeal consistency). The way I like to eat this is with a lot of sumac, which also has a light sour note and gives a beautiful color and with some good quality olive oil, and pita bread. Feel free to add some extra ingredients to the mix or on top, after (mint, paprika, parsley, some fat yoghurt, etc., go crazy and try different combinations).

Also for this meal, we decided to make some salad, also inspired by another Levant classic, fattoush. You’ll love this dish it has intense taste, a good level of sourness and some nice crunch, and it all mixes incredibly with the hummus. Details in the next post.

Enjoy,