There’s a nurse I work with who’s lived in Greece for 25 years. She married a greek man and had all of her kids here. She speaks fluent Greek and cooks like a Greek housewife. I guess she is a greek housewife, right?
Silly me.
Anyway, she has this openness and enthusiasm for everything good in this country. We’ve taken to bringing in ingredients from home and throwing together simple dishes to share at lunch. She gets a big kick out of eating the more American Southwest things I make, refried bean burritos with shredded cabbage yesterday, and I really enjoy learning some Greek dishes that use the mysterious ingredients I wonder about in the grocery here.
This week, she taught me to make this surprisingly simple, but incredibly delicious salad. It’s a traditional dish from Crete made with rusks, a dry cracker-like bread. These are so popular that most groceries here have entire aisles of different sorts of rusks, which you’d find more impressive if you knew that there’s only 3 to 4 different boxed cereals and half a dozen ice creams to choose from.
One of the best things about this salad is how quickly you can assemble it. I can get it on the table in no more than 5 minutes using the following ingredients per person:
one large ripe tomato
3 smallish rusks, you can substitute a hearty whole grain bread that’s been set out to become dry
a smallish hunk of feta cheese, about 1 oz., broken into pieces
a heaping Tablespoon of bottled capers
a sprinkling each of red wine vinegar, cold pressed olive oil and dried oregano
First, place the rusks or dried bread on a large plate and sprinkle with a bit of water. About 3 small rusks per person.
Coarsely chop one large tomato per person.
Pile tomatoes on top of rusks. Top with chunks of feta cheese and capers. Sprinkle the salad with vinegar, olive oil and oregano.
What are you waiting for? EAT!
Enjoy!
You are going to seriously love this one…
- one large ripe tomato.
- 3 small rusks, you can substitute a hearty whole grain bread that’s been set out to become dry.
- a small hunk of feta cheese, about 1 oz., broken into pieces.
- a heaping Tablespoon of bottled capers.
- a sprinkling each of red wine vinegar, cold pressed olive oil and dried oregano.
- Place the rusks or dried bread on a large plate and sprinkle with a bit of water. About 3 small rusks per person.
- Coarsely chop one large tomato per person.
- Pile tomatoes on top of rusks.
- Top with chunks of feta cheese and capers.
- Sprinkle the salad with vinegar, olive oil and oregano.
12 Comments
Looks delicious! I love bread salads (probably becasue I love bread more than salad)/
This looks delicious!
Oh, I love panzanella – Italian bread salad… this looks good – and it’s late august – I have plenty of tomatoes!
Panzanella? Italian bread salad sounds great. Is the recipe on your blog, Ria?
Yay for vine ripened tomatoes! There’s absolutely nothing like them…
Looks delicious – what a great way to use all the homegrown tomatoes available right now!
I’m just loving the fresh tomatoes this time of year too!
I just made this salad for a coworker who’s been to culinary school and he said, “Oh! Greek Bruschetta!”
Oh, that looks so good! That would be the perfect light lunch in this 100 degree weather right now.
I don’t envy you that weather, Amy! It’s in the 80′s here in Greece.
Will try very soon. just picked some fresh tomatoes off the vine.
Because of diet I will use fresh grated parmesan or Mozzarella
cheese as a substitute.
Just looking at the photo, before reading ingredients, I have to
give you a chuckle. I thought it was watermelon w/Feta! lol
Tomatoes makes for a better recipe for sure.
Love this site!!
Thought I had clic’d all stars. LOL This is a very healthy salad indeed.
And I just found out a photo comes out with it when you print
the recipe. How clever are this Mother/Daughter duo!! Yay!!
Hey mom,
Thank you for sending me the rusks and tin of oregano. I made a dakos salad today! I’m not a huge fan of capers so I used kalamata olives instead and it was DELICIOUS!!! Feel free to send me those rusks anytime!
Oh Wow! You always make everything so pretty… yours really IS a Greek Bruschetta. I can’t believe you don’t like capers. Where did I go WRONG???