S = Simple Shepherds Salad

Simple Shepherds Salad

Who is having a productive week then?! I most certainly am! 😛 With the lighter longer days it’s sort out the junk week, spring cleaning time, clear the clutter days and then realise how wonderful your surroundings are! My garden is looking better day after day, several trees are blossoming for the first time ever (that’s so amazing having blossom blossoming!!! 😛 )

and of course the rhubarb is growing along with the tomato, cucumber, courgette and pepper plants. Wonderful! 🙂 Today might even be clean the car day… Wish that was as appealing as more chocolate experiments!!! Maybe that’s a clue for tomorrow…

Anyway, today the A-Z challenge brings us to the letter ‘S’.

This could have been so many things but as this is my favourite salad and being another food we ate in Istanbul, I thought I would share this with you.

Generally this shepherds salad – ‘çoban salata’ in Turkish consists of three main ingredients: Tomatoes; Cucumber; onions. This salad also often contains lots of fresh parsley (I’m not a big fan) and green peppers but keeping it simple is best! 🙂 What I love about this salad is the taste of the juice which naturally forms and gives it such a delicious flavour. It’s so good! Don’t go thinking you can just take the ingredients and throw them in a bowl! That won’t work! You have to chop each item into small cubes, not dice, not chunks, small cubes! 🙂 You need all the juice from the chopping board and you need a tad of patience to let the flavours develop! Some people add lots of salt, lemon juice and / or olive oil and often mix in or top with black olives. I’ve eaten this for lunch, dinner AND breakfast and I’ve eaten it with other salads,

with falafel, in a wrap or literally just on its own! Can you tell how much I love this wonderful salad! 😛 and now it’s salad weather again I can eat lots more!!! 🙂

Gather

• 1 small mild onion (red or white)
• 1/2 a cucumber
• 4-5 tomatoes
• —————–
• Extras – optional
• Salt
• Lemon juice
• Olive oil
• Fresh parsley finely chopped

Prepare

1. Chop the onion into small cubes – less than 1cm cubes, put in a bowl.
2. Cut the cucumber in half lengthways, then cut lengthways again so you have 4 pieces, and again until you have eight long pieces. Put them all together then chop into small chunks. Scrape into the bowl along with any juice (and seeds if you have a young juicy cucumber).
3. Take the stem scar out of the tomato then cut in half from the top down. Cut each half into 16 pieces! I did say it was ‘small’ cubes! 😛 🙂 Scrape everything into the bowl and repeat with the remaining tomatoes.
4. Gently mix it all together and set aside for 10-15 minutes for the flavours to develop – this is best on the worktop, not in the fridge!
5. Do a taste test and add your extras if you think its really needed. Salt, lemon juice, olive oil and parsley.
6. Enjoy! 🙂

Serve & Store

• This will store in the fridge for 1-2 days but the fresher the better!
• Spoon into rigid lettuce leaves for a delicious crunch!
• Serve with your favourite lunch, dinner… or breakfast! 😛