Village Salad.

Well, here in England we have had the year's first mini-heatwave with temperatures reaching 19c in some parts of the country, apparently supermarket chain Asda said barbecues are flying off the shelves! And so almost overnight I have had to abandon my stews and casseroles in favour of salads, fish and chicken, you have to go with the flow in this country as no doubt this glorious weather could be short lived.

I recently had a traditional Greek salad known as 'horiatiki' (meaning in the peasant manner) or 'village salad' to the Greek's. Done in true horiatiki style this salad is a delicious meal made for languorous picking at, in fact in Greece you would eat horiatiki with a hard crusted bread, 'papara' is to dunk a small piece of bread into the oil and juices in the bottom of the salad bowl. It's the same concept as scarpetta in Italian, the bread is eaten with pasta to mop up the sauce and oil.

Like many traditional dishes, Greek salad has been bastardized, eg the addition of lettuce, which is used mostly as a filler, but is not acceptable to purist's. A true horiatiki should consist of ripe tomatoes, cucumber, onions, olives, olive oil, feta cheese and oregano. But hey, you're getting to know me now and will have come to realize that I tend to add a dose of irreverence to most recipes, if I have ingredients to use up or am lacking in certain ingredients for a recipe I tweak (not to be confused with twerk!) Therefore this is a 'Greekish' salad as I have added the impermissible lettuce, I've also added toasted sunflower seeds which just complement the salad so well! I pan cooked some chicken to go with the salad but you could eat 'papara' With lots of Lovely crusty bread.

Greek salad

Recipe
Handful of ripe cherry tomatoes
1 small onion, thinly sliced
Handful pitted olives
1 cos lettuce, shredded
Vinegar
Olive oil
Sunflower seeds
200g feta cheese

Halve tomatoes and toss them in salt to draw some of the moisture out
Soak onion in vinegar and a pinch of salt for 20 minutes to make it milder

Place lettuce in a large bowl, add drained onion, tomatoes, olives and feta cheese

Drizzle with olive oil and toss everything around, season and top with toasted sunflower seeds

I heated some butter and olive oil in pan and cooked some boned and skinned chicken, I added a splash of white wine which I reduced to form a syrupy glaze, the total cooking time was 20 minutes

Slice the chicken and coat with the syrup from the bottom of the pan
Arrange on the plate with a helping of salad and some flat bread

Delicious!

                          My friend Tony's Greek salad served with his lamb rashers.

'Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food'
-Hippocrates.

Love Donna xxxxxx