The perfect picnic salad paired with a Pilsner

SAB_FattoushLebanese fattoush and Pilsner

This salad is Lebanese in origin and packs a fair wallop of flavour, with the bitter sumac dressing bringing out the best in the crunchy vegetables. Fattoush is all about texture and is ideal for picnics because it has no leaves, so it can be dressed in advance without wilting.

A crisp, clean beer like Pilsner Urquell would be a fabulous accompaniment. Beer with salad? Who would have thought …

Serves 4

  • 4 pita breads
  • 25g soft butter
  • 1 cucumber
  • 2 cups cherry tomatoes
  • 1 cauliflower
  • 2 spring onions
  • 10 radishes
  • 2 sticks celery
  • 10g fresh mint
  • 10g coriander
  • 10g flat-leaf parsley
  • 100g goat’s cheese

Cut the pita breads in half lengthways and brush with butter. Bake on a rack in the oven until crisp and golden brown. Remove and leave to cool. Peel and deseed the cucumber and cut it into large dice. Halve the tomatoes, break the cauliflower into florets, roughly chop the spring onions and quarter the radishes.

Roughly chop the herbs and combine them with the vegetables in a salad bowl. Crumble the goat’s cheese on top and drizzle the salad with the sumac dressing. Break the pitas into shards for scooping up the salad.

Sumac Dressing

  • 1 clove garlic
  • 1 tsp sumac (a lemony-tart Middle Eastern spice)
  • 1 tsp soft brown sugar
  • juice of 1 lemon
  • 100ml extra virgin olive oil
  • salt and pepper

Whisk garlic, crushed into a paste, together with the sumac and sugar. Add the lemon juice, then the olive oil, whisking all the time. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

 

*Taken from A Life Digested by Peter Goffe-Wood.