Greek Salad

Tomato, cucumber and a whole slab of feta with no leaves in it at all, dressed with oil and oregano and nothing else.

Not vegetarian — contains feta whose rennet the source does not name.

Ingredients

• 700 g ripe tomatoes, in rough wedges
• 1 cucumber, peeled in stripes and thickly sliced
• 1 small red onion, sliced thin
• 1 green pepper, in rings
• 200 g feta, in one or two thick slabs
• 100 g Kalamata olives
• 6 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• salt
• bread, to finish

Method

1. THERE IS NO LETTUCE IN IT AND THE FETA IS NOT CRUMBLED. Both of those are how this salad is usually served outside a Greek kitchen and both change what it is. Leaves wilt in the oil and tomato water within minutes and turn the bowl slimy; crumbled feta dissolves into the dressing and is gone. A slab laid on top stays a slab, and you break pieces off it as you eat.
2. AND THERE IS NO VINEGAR. Ripe tomatoes bring their own acid, and the dressing is oil, salt and oregano. Vinegar flattens the tomato and makes the whole bowl taste of dressing rather than of vegetables -- which is also why the quality of the tomatoes decides the dish entirely, and why this is not worth making in February.
3. Tomatoes cut into rough wedges, not slices, so they hold their juice until they are bitten.
4. Salted in the bowl FIRST, on their own, and left 5 minutes. They release juice, and that juice is half the dressing.
5. Cucumber peeled in stripes -- some skin left for the bite -- and cut thick. Thin slices go limp.
6. Onion sliced thin and, if it is a fierce one, rinsed under cold water and patted dry.
7. Cucumber, onion, pepper and olives into the bowl with the tomatoes and turned once.
8. Oil poured over, and oregano crushed between the fingers as it is scattered, which wakes it up.
9. Turned once more, gently, and NOT TOSSED. It is a bowl of distinct things, not a dressed mixture.
10. The feta laid on top in one or two pieces, a last pour of oil over it, and a final pinch of oregano on the cheese.
11. Served at once with bread, whose real purpose is the pool of tomato juice and oil left at the bottom.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Greece · All recipes