Fattoush or crispy bread salad by Ottlenghi

This recipe if from Jerusalem and is Sami’s (one of the authors) mother’s recipe. I’ve always liked little radishes but my partner really doesn’t. I have made fattoush in the early days of our relationship and he carefully picked the radish bits out and put them in my plate. However, this recipe is so full of flavour and the radish is diced so thinly, that even he took to it, be it rather reluctantly. Thank you Sami’s mum for making my partner eat this nutritious and delicious vegetable! Just so happens that the recipe features on the Telegraph’s website so the link is provided.

Recipe: Fattoush by the Guardian

Tips:

a. The chopping takes a while so give yourself plenty of time to make it.

b. I crisped the pita bread in the oven before adding it to the salad.

c. I used buttermilk instead of milk and yoghurt. Easily available in larger supermarkets. Alternatively, you can dilute yoghurt and use that too.

d. I chopped the vegetables and herbs and put them in a large bowl and put it aside. Then I mixed the spices into the buttermilk and set that aside too. When my guests arrived, I mixed the bread, vegetables and spiced buttermilk to assemble the salad.  The result was a fresh and crispy fattoush.

e. To make it vegan, leave the buttermilk out and use the olive oil and garlic dressing as if it were a vinaigrette.

f. To make it gluten-free, use gluten-free pita bread or nan.