Shirazi Salad

Everything is diced very fine and dressed with verjuice, then left to sit for an hour.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 4 cucumbers, peeled and finely diced
• 4 tomatoes, finely diced
• 1 onion, finely diced
• 4 tablespoons verjuice, or juice of 2 limes
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 20 g mint, chopped
• 20 g parsley, chopped
• 1 teaspoon dried mint
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon sumac, optional

Method

1. EVERYTHING IS DICED VERY FINE AND DRESSED WITH VERJUICE, THEN LEFT TO SIT FOR AN HOUR. Its article gives both halves. The primary ingredients are FINELY DICED cucumber, tomato and onion -- five millimetres, not chunks -- and the article notes the flavour may increase after being set for an hour or longer before serving, which allows the flavours to intermingle. So this is not a salad to dress at the table. The fine dice means every spoonful has all three vegetables in it, and the hour lets the salt draw juice out of the tomato and cucumber so the dressing becomes partly the vegetables' own liquid.
2. VERJUICE IS THE DRESSING, AND LIME IS THE ALTERNATIVE ITS ARTICLE ALLOWS. Four tablespoons of the juice of unripe grapes, which is sharper and greener than citrus and is what the salad is built on. Its article records verjuice as used primarily in Gilan, Mazandaran and the Azerbaijan region, with fresh lemon or lime juice elsewhere.
3. THE CUCUMBER IS PEELED. Its skin is bitter in quantity and it stays chewy once the salad has sat for an hour.
4. THE ONION IS ONE, NOT TWO. Finely diced raw onion gets stronger as it sits in acid, and after an hour a second onion would be all you could taste.
5. SALT GOES IN AT THE START, WHICH IS THE WHOLE MECHANISM. It draws the liquid that becomes half the dressing. Salted at the table instead, the salad is dry and the dressing sits at the bottom.
6. SPICES ARE KEPT MILD AND ITS ARTICLE IS FIRM ABOUT IT. It advises against eating this salad with sour spices and recommends mild-flavoured ones. Dried mint, parsley and a little sumac are as far as it should go.
7. ITS ARTICLE LISTS THE OPTIONAL ADDITIONS AND ONE OF THEM IS A PAGE HERE. Chopped mint, parsley, scallions, dill, sumac, red vinegar -- and Delal Sauce, as on its own page, the salted green herb paste. Used that way, nothing else in the salad needs salting.
8. IT IS EATEN WITH ALMOST ANYTHING AND IT CUTS RICHNESS. Its article has it as a summer side on its own, year-round alongside grilled meat, before and after meals, as an accompaniment to green bean rice -- Loobia Polo, as on its own page -- and used almost as a condiment to cut the herbal heaviness of stews. Served with bread, or with cheese and walnuts.

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 Iran · All recipes