Fattoush

This is my all time favorite Middle Eastern salad! Of course as I have already stated, people make Middle Eastern dishes from their own family recipes and those can vary greatly. So, this is a traditional recipe that I learned from my Palestinian mother in law.

Ingredients

1 Romaine lettuce

1 cucumber

3 Roma tomatoes

1 tsp. dry mint or fresh mint, if you use fresh you will need more

1 clove garlic minced

1/2 bunch parsley washed and chopped

juice of 2 lemons

olive oil for mixing with lemon juice to make dressing

salt to taste

1 whole piece of Arabic bread

Directions

First, preheat oven to 300 degrees, break bread into bite size pieces and place on baking sheet. Put in oven to bake and for 15-20 minutes.

When done, remove from oven and let cool.

Wash lettuce and chop into small pieces. Cut cucumbers and tomatoes into small pieces. Chop parsley and garlic.

Mix lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, garlic, parsley. Add salt and mint. Mix well.

Juice lemon and mix with a few Tbs. Olive oil.

Add bread pieces to salad and mix well. Season for flavor. This salad should be full of flavor so adjust to your taste.

Bread does get a little soft and it’s supposed to, but you can put the bread in towards the end if you don’t care for this softer bread. This is simple and delicious!