Dilly Tomato Salad
Trying to write a recipe for a salad feels a little counterintuitive. Mostly because what I put in a salad changes depending on what is in season, what is available at the market, and what I feel like. This recipe for example calls for olives. I put a rather overwhelming amount of olives in, but if you’re not a huge olive fan feel free to cut them back. I guess what I’m saying is, this salad is awesome… for me… and maybe you’ll like it! But if you want to change some things up go right ahead.
Serves: 1-2 as a main, 3-4 as a side
Ingredients:
1 clove garlic, grated
2 tsp red wine vinegar
1/4 cup fresh dill, chopped
1 tbsp Trader Joe’s Dill Pickle Mustard
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
fresh cracked black pepper
kosher salt
2 Persian cucumbers or 1/2 English or field cucumber, diced
1 giant heirloom tomato (or 2 large ones)
4 pickled onions, diced in quarters (optional)
17 whole pitted Kalamata olives
1/2 a container (3 oz/85g) Earth Island (aka Follow Your Heart) feta style crumbles
1 1/2 tsp za’atar
Get out a great big salad bowl because the first thing you’re going to do is make the dressing. Grate 1 clove of garlic and add it to the bowl, cover with your red wine vinegar. Wash your fresh dill and roughly chop it before adding it to the bowl (pick out any stems and dice those more finely if you’d like).
Squeeze in a tablespoon of Trader Joe’s Dill Pickle Mustard. Now I know not everyone is going to be able to get this. We don’t have Trader Joe’s in Canada, and it’s a seasonal item that only comes out in the summer anyway. And not everyone will buy half a dozen at a time to last through the winter. If you can’t find the Trader Joe’s version look for another dill mustard at your grocery store. Just make sure to read the ingredients, some brands will do a “creamy dill” that includes eggs and milk. If you’re really jammed up get a good yellow mustard and dice up some pickles really fine and you might get something a bit similar.
Add in your olive oil, fresh cracked pepper and kosher salt to taste, and whisk it all together. The mustard will help to emulsify the dressing and give you a sort of creamy tangy base.
Next up… chopping stuff. Take whatever kind of cucumbers you settled on and dice them into fork-sized chunks. Not too big, not too small. Add it on top of the dressing but don’t mix it in.
Then take your heirloom tomato and start to dice it into big random shapes. I say this because often heirloom tomatoes look a bit strange and you aren’t cutting them in perfect rounds the way you would with a Roma or cherry. Just dice it up how you see fit and then throw it in the bowl, pulp and all.
If you’re going to add pickled onions (and I recommend it but I’m a pickle head) quarter those and add to the bowl as well.
Now comes the part where you measure olives with your heart, both literally and figuratively. If you have high blood pressure and need to watch your sodium intake perhaps dial it back. If you’re madly in love with olives and will eat them straight from the jar like me… 17 seems like a good number.
If you’ve found yourself vegan feta crumbles (and I hope you have as there are a ton of great brands out there), shake about half the container onto the top of your salad mound.
Top it all off with a dusting of za’atar which hopefully you can find at a grocer near you. If you’re not familiar with the spice blend it’s from the Middle East and goes by a few different recipes but generally includes oregano, sesame seeds, salt, sometimes sumac, cumin, thyme, or marjoram. It often tops bread or hummus, and once you try it you’ll fall in love with it. Za’atar goes back as far as Ancient Egypt and was even found in the tomb of Tutankhamun.
Toss everything together and enjoy!
