My tomatoes are finally ripening and there are cucumbers lurking among the tangle of herbs that enjoy the sun against the side of our house. In fact the cucumbers are rapidly becoming entangled with the cherry tomatoes. I’m loving the abundance of parsley lining the strawberry bed, while the mint is rampaging as usual in places it shouldn’t.
As usual, rather than getting round to tackling my unruly herbs and veggies, I’m focusing more on how I can eat them. Fattoush seems a perfect way of making good use of what’s currently plentiful. Especially as it uses up some of the flatbread I keep coming across when rummaging in the unknown depths of the freezer.
As the sun is still shining and I’m in denial that this is really the last week of the school summer holiday, simple salads and barbeque food are also what I’m still craving.
I vary the quantities and ingredients for this, depending on what’s available in the garden. So before the cucumbers had grown, in my lazy summery mode I happily made it without them, rather than get in the car. My radish are rapidly going to seed, which is very pretty (and you can eat the pods) but I’m finding a few crazy giant ones to chop into this. And when I’m short of spring onions, my much favoured egyptian walking onions are often substituted.
This is the basic recipe I use:
1 leftover/frozen home-made flatbread (you can use a couple of pitta instead)
1 small home-grown cucumber (or half a bought one)
A handful of tomatoes
2 handfuls of flat-leaf parsley, chopped
2 handfuls of mint, chopped
A few radish
Egyptian walking onions, chopped (or 3 spring onions)
2 tablespoons olive oil
Juice of a lemon
Toast the flatbread until crisp. Peel the cucumber, chop into chunks. slice the radish and chop the tomatoes roughly. Tear the toasted flatbread into small chunks, and combine with the vegetables, herbs, oil, lemon juice and season with salt and pepper to taste in a bowl.
Very simple and easy to assemble, this is great with fish or on its own as a lunch. Maybe with a little dukkah and more flatbread.
Would love to enter this into Karen from Lavender and Lovage’s inspiring August cooking with herbs challenge.
And very much hoping that the summery weather is going to continue for the rest of the hols. Encouraging me to lazy garden, eat simple food, and to gather more mint for mint tea or mohitos, rather than tackle the harder labour of digging up huge clumps of the stuff!
We have been doing a lot of tabbouleh over here of late, but this is a nice twist we should try!
My version is probably not at all authentic – but tabbouleh and fattoush with lots of herbs are fab in summery weather aren’t they.
Sounds delicious – I’ll have to try it with filleted sardines 😉
Sounds a great combination!
Much better to sit and drink mohitos than dig! Enjoy the rest of the hols.
Totally agree and I hope you do too.
Oooh, how delicious! We make fattoush as well, and let purslane grow as a weed in our garden especially to make this salad. No radishes in our beds though – we planted out a punnet’s worth one year, and I had to eat THE WHOLE LOT. Not one of my men would go near them.
(PS. we toast our flatbread in the sandwich press – it’s really quick and easy! :))
Great idea for the toasting and thanks for reminding me about purslane. I used to grow it and I bet it’s great in this. On my list!
The parsley here has grown really well this year, so I’ll be experimenting with your salad to use some up… I’m sure the rest of the family will appreciate a break from runner beans!
We have lots of runner beans too – I love them but trying not to overwhelm everyone else with them and put them off the tasty bean for life.
Fattoush is one of my very favourite salads and this looks so crisp and refreshing. Interested that you didn’t use sumac – it’s the lemony sharpness with the salad and bread that makes it for me.
I think the only reason I don’t use sumac is probably because of laziness as I can’t grab it from the garden! But you’re making me think I should try it, like the idea of that lemony sharpness and also wondering if any herbs incl Celia’s idea of purslane would give me that lemony flavour?
Yum, yum! This is such a great combination of flavours! Really enjoyed this and now I’m vowing to grow more parsley. It’s such a great herb. I’ve been using it loads in my current favourite – home-grown cherry tomato sauce with olive oil, capers, chilli and plenty of garlic.
Your cherry tomato sauce sounds wonderful, can’t wait to try those tomatoes! Parsley grows so easily, it would definitely grow like mad in your garden. Thanks again for the lovely pics too.
A BIG favourite of mine Andrea and yours looks stunning, especially with all of that fresh mint…..I am another summac lover, a]although, I find lemon juice adds that sourness if needed. Karen PS: Purslane is a great leaf to use too, we used it in the restaurant in Cyprus all the time for salads like this.
You had a restaurant in Cyprus? I bet you had some fabulous herbs and amazingly tasty tomatoes to use in these sorts of salads.
I love fattoush salad Andrea and have not made it at home so will be trying out your recipe. Never heard of Egyptian walking onions!
Hope you like the fattoush. Egyptian walking onions are so useful as they plant themselves around the garden so there are always a few onions to pick – maybe I should write a post about walking onions as lots of people don’t seem to have heard of them.
Ooooh so this is the fatoooosh. Looks delicious!