Recipe for our favourite Levantine bread salad Fattoush

Anyone who thinks they’ve exhausted Middle Eastern cuisine is mistaken. In NOOMI, Sara Shawkat introduces you to the still largely unexplored cuisine of Iraq. She teaches you how to make authentic Iraqi classics such as this Levantine bread salad, while also sharing stories about food traditions and special ingredients.

Sara: “Fattoush comes from the word fattat, meaning crumbs, and, like fatteh, this dish originated as a way to use up stale bread. I use Lebanese flatbread because it becomes so deliciously crispy. If you prefer more of a crouton situation, you can use stale samoon or pita. Don’t forget to dry the vegetables well after washing them, otherwise you’ll end up with a soggy salad. Apart from the dressing, lettuce and bread, this salad is quite flexible, so vary it with raw vegetables of your choice. Purslane is in season during the summer. Promise me you’ll make fattoush with purslane then. I mean: five sour ingredients in one dish—what more could you want?”

How to make Levantine bread salad Fattoush

• Make the flatbread crisps and break the strips into smaller pieces.
• Tear the lettuce into large pieces, halve the radishes, peel alternating strips from the cucumber and cut the cucumber into large pieces.
• Cut the tomato into wedges and the spring onion into pieces of approximately 3 centimetres.
• For the dressing, thoroughly mix the preserved lemon, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, sumac, pomegranate molasses and dried mint in a small bowl.
• Fill 4 bowls with the lettuce, then place the radishes, cucumber and tomato on top. Divide the spring onion, parsley leaves and mint leaves over them. Place some bread crisps around the edge of the bowls and divide the dressing over the fattoush.
• Garnish with pomegranate seeds.

Title: Noomi
Author: Sara Shawkat
Price: €33,99
Publisher: Fontaine Uitgevers

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