Middle Eastern Style Salad

This is a little salad I put together to go with a Moroccan style chicken Breast cutlets.  I have that separately posted.  Here is the link to Chicken – Pseudo Moroccan.

• I started by seeding and chopping tomatoes into about half inch dice.
• Peel, Seed and chop English cucumber, about 1/2 of a large one.  Keep the size about the same as the Tomato.
• I also washed and cleaned and chopped reasonably fine one heart of Romaine lettuce.
• Finely dice about 1/5 of a medium size Red Onion.
• Do a Chiffonade of Fresh mint about a quarter of a cup.
• Toss all of these into a bowl.

 

What I needed at this point was really some Tahini.  I did not have any but I had some hummus (good one, made by Ed Hyders a local Mediterranean food source here in Worcester, MA).  I used that instead of Tahini

• A mixture of Hummus, Lime juice, Olive Oil, Salt and Pepper to make a dressing.
• What was funny was a secondary positive of the Hummus instead of Tahini; the extra protein from the chick peas made the emulsification of the dressing easy.
• Taste and adjust.  It needs the acidity but careful not to overwhelm the mint with the acid.
• As a last and almost light bulb moment, where I wanted a more pronounced lemony flavour without adding too much acid, I sprinkled in some Sumac.

Don’t be a stickler, doesn’t everybody have dried Sumac in their Pantry anyway.  🙂