With just a handful of fresh ingredients, this vibrant salad will transport you to the Mediterranean. It's quick and easy to prepare, requires no special ingredients and needs just the best olive oil, red wine vinegar and a sprinkle of oregano to serve. The perfect salad on a sunny day.
1 medium red onion
4 medium tomatoes or about 12 cherry tomatoes.
For maximum flavour, use vine ripened tomatoes
1 cucumber
1 green bell pepper
50g pitted Kalamata black olives
1 block Greek feta cheese
3 tbsp olive oil
1-2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1½ tsp dried oregano
sprinkle of sea salt
Red Onion - Peel and halve the red onion and slice thinly. Put the onion slices into a bowl of iced water, add a teaspoon of red wine vinegar and leave to soak for 10-15 minutes. This will mellow the onion's raw taste.
Tomatoes - If you using medium sized tomatoes, simply cut them into wedges. For cherry tomatoes, cut them in half.
Cucumber - Score down the skin with a fork or partially peel so the skin has a striped pattern. Then cut in half lengthwise, remove the seeds and cut the flesh into 1cm slices.
There are a few ways to deseed a cucumber - if you leave it whole. cut off a length and stand it on its end, you can use an apple corer or if you cut it in half lengthwise, you can run a teaspoon down the length to scoop out the seeds.
Green bell pepper - slice thinly across the pepper, removing the seeds as you go.
Black olives - any good quality black olives will do, but try and get Greek Kalamata olives for their authentic flavour.
Feta - again, a good quality feta cheese is best and it should be the star of the show sitting on top of the vegetables. Cut into cubes or tear into larger chunks.
Dressing
Olive oil and a dash of red wine vinegar - no need to whisk.
Once you've assembled everything, sprinkle with the dried oregano and sea salt, then add the dressing. Lightly toss and top with the feta cheese. Sprinkle a little more dried oregano and sea salt over the top before serving.
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