Ingredients
Serves 42 continental cucumbers
4 vine ripe tomatoes, cut in half and deseeded
1 red onion
½ bunch flat leaf parsley
½ bunch mint
¼ bunch coriander
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 slices of pita bread, torn up
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
150ml extra virgin olive oil
2 lemons, juiced
Fresh cracked black pepper and sea salt flakes to taste
1 Iceberg lettuce, washed and separated into cups
Method
Slice the cucumber in half lengthways and remove the seeds with a teaspoon, then dice into small cubes.
Dice the tomato into pieces about the same size as the cucumber. Place both into a large bowl.
Finely dice the purple onion and add to the bowl with the tomato and cucumber.
Wash the parsley, coriander and mint, and then pick over the stalks to remove the leaves. Tear the leaves into pieces and add to the other ingredients.
In a large fry pan, heat the olive oil. Tear the pita bread into the small, bite size pieces and in two batches fry in the hot oil until it becomes crisp and golden. Place the fried pita bread on paper towel to drain and cool to adding to the salad just before serving.
To dress the salad: Mix the extra virgin olive oil and the lemon juice with the pepper and salt, pour over the salad and add the fried pita bread.
To serve: Place a spoonful of the Fattoush into a prepared lettuce cup and serve on individual plates or a platter similar to Chinese San choy bao.
Notes
To bulk the salad out more use some of the left over iceberg lettuce, shredded to give the salad more body.
The ingredients in this salad are usually kept chunky. What I have done is refined it slightly to give it a modern restaurant feel.
Sumac can be sprinkled into the salad to give it a different sour note. Reduce the lemon juice by half. Sumac is a small purple berry that is often soaked in water and it is the water that is used instead of lemon juice as a souring agent when lemons are not in season in some Middle Eastern countries.
This salad is a great way to use up stale pita or flat bread.
A fantastic summer salad to serve with grilled bbq meats.
Try adding some fetta cheese and black olives.
The seeds in the cucumber and tomato are removed for two reasons; primarily to reduce the water content in the salad to prevent the crisp pita bread from becoming soggy and secondly, the seeds in both ingredients are slightly bitter.