Fattoush - Toasted Bread Salad

Chef floWer's Note:

Fattoush is a classic Lebanese dish. It is often eaten by itself as a starter or light lunch. Saumac is an essential ingredient. It is a spice that is made from the dried, powdered berries of the sumac tree. It was my first time trying Saumac and I really enjoyed it, next time I would add one more teaspoon of the Saumac. This was used as a side salad for Shish Taouk Toum - Grilled / BBQ Chicken With Garlic Sauce . This recipe comes from a book called "The Lebanese Cookbook" by Hussien Dekmak

• Total Time: 15 mins
• Prep Time: 15 mins
• Cook Time: 0 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 4

• 1 carrot, chopped
• 1/2 cos lettuce, chopped
• 1 cucumber, chopped
• 2 tomatoes, chopped
• 5 radishes, chopped
• 1 tablespoon spring onions or 1 tablespoon green onion, chopped
• 1 red capsicums or 1 red pepper, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, chopped
• 1 tablespoon flat leaf parsley, chopped
• 2 teaspoons ground sumac
• 1 large flat bread, toasted and broken into pieces
• 2 -3 tablespoons olive oil
• salt, to taste

Directions:

1. Combine all the vegetables in a large bowl and mix well.
2. Add the garlic, parsley, sumac, bread, olive oil and salt to taste.
3. Toss everything together and serve immediately.

Reviews

[Ycooks2]

Thank you for this recipe. It was the basis for a great salad. I added the same amount of lemon juice as oil and upped the sumac to 1 tbs. Try it this way and you will LOVE this salad.

[Just Call Me Martha]

I was looking for a traditional Fattoush recipe, using sumac and came across this recipe. It sounded the most authentic except for the lack of lemon juice. I am not sure if this was an oversight by the poster or not. I added about 2 Tbsp of lemon juice along with the olive oil and this salad was excellent!!! It tastes just like the one I get at our local Lebanese restaurant. I would rate this recipe 5* if it included the lemon juice.

[UmmBinat]

Fine but nothing special. I know it is not traditional but even my local Lebanese restaurant leaves out the pita bread sometimes and I did have to as we are gluten free. I think chunks of carrot are not good in salad as they are so hard compared to other ingredients (for example I think a poor combo is carrots and tomatoes). I grated mine, still the cruddy carrots from the regular grocer with hardly any flavour, no lettuce on hand, I used Lebanese cucumbers which I peeled (wax/pesticides), wonderful tomatoes, extra sumac, cold pressed extra virgin olive oil, sea salt to taste and some freshly squeezed lemon juice as I had some ready and other reviewers said I should, plus the rest of the ingredients. I'd try another recipe next time.