greek salad

I am obsessed with Greek salad. This summer, I spent several weekends at a friend's parents' house in Long Branch, and their extraordinarily well stocked refrigerator nearly always had some of the stuff from the local outpost of this joint. The salad itself is wonderful, but my newfound love for it I suspect has just as much to do with the food as with the positive associations linked to it: relaxation, great company, fantastic weather.

When a food or dish is on my mind as much as this has been, it only makes sense for me to make it at home. And though I hardly followed a recipe to make it--rather, I referred to a couple selections in Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything and then promptly ignored most of both recipes--it was a new culinary foray for me and, therefore, deserving of a blog post. It was really, really satisfying and really, really easy. (I say that about everything I post here, don't I?) The measurements below are guesses of what I used, because I am a half-assed recipe writer and didn't measure most things. I used English cucumber and two gorgeous heirloom tomatoes I found at the grocery store, but you could use bell pepper, cherry or grape tomatoes, regular cucumber, radishes, anything else you wanted. Although any Greek salad I've ever eaten had onions in it, I have recently discovered--to my very great dismay--that they give me heartburn, so I omitted them.

One handy note: The dressing should sit for a bit, so the flavors can develop. Therefore, it's a good idea to make the dressing completely and set aside before prepping the salad ingredients. The time it takes you to wash, mince, chop and toss things is enough for the dressing to hang out and do its thing.

Greek salad with lemon vinaigrette
Adapted from Mark Bittman
Serves 5

Ingredients
{dressing}
1 tsp. minced or grated lemon zest
1/2 tsp. salt, or to taste (I halved this, since the salad would be salty from the feta and olives)
1/4 c. fresh squeezed lemon juice
Ground black pepper, to taste or none at all, if you prefer
1/2 c. extra-virgin olive oil, plus a little more if needed


{salad}
4-6 c. mixed greens, such as romaine lettuce, spinach, arugula and/or whatever else you have/like, washed and chopped or torn into bite-size pieces
1/4 c. minced fresh mint, or a mix of mint and parsley
1 c. cucumber, sliced and then halved to make half-moon shapes
2 medium tomatoes, cored and cut into large chunks, or 1-2 c. grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 c. pitted whole kalamata olives
1/4-1/2 c. feta, chopped or crumbled

1. In a small bowl, mix zest, salt and juice briefly with an immersion blender, wire whisk or fork. (You could also do this in a food processor or blender.) Slowly add oil in a stream, or drop by drop if whisking, until an emulsion forms or your arm starts to get tired. For me, they take the same amount of time.

2. Add remaining oil faster, but still somewhat slowly and steadily. Taste to adjust salt, and if too lemony, add a bit more oil. Set aside while you prepare the rest of the salad, to allow the flavors to develop.

3. In a large serving bowl (a large soup pot also works if, like me, you recently broke your only very large serving bowl), combine greens, herbs and about 1/4 c. of dressing; toss, and if you think it needs more dressing, go ahead and add more.

4. Add cucumber, tomatoes, olives and feta. Gently toss again, and serve.



I topped the salad with grilled chicken that had marinated for an hour in this bottled salad dressing, and to round things out, I served everything with store-bought pita, hummus and stuffed grape leaves.

Miraculously, there are leftovers. Thankfully, I don't have to think too hard about what to eat for dinner tonight.