Dip into a Turkish-style spoon salad
You may be one of those people who find salads to be a little ho hum. While this salad features your usual tomatoes and red onion, your tastebuds are in for a treat when they discover bursts of pomegranate, the crunch of walnuts, the heat of bullhorn peppers and fresh zesty herbs. And to top it all off, it’s coated in a zippy sweet-and-sour dressing of sumac, pomegranate molasses and apple vinegar. Often seen on menus of Istanbul as the famous Gavurdağ salad, this finely chopped side dish is designed to be eaten with a spoon. Follow Istanbul-born chef Somer Sivrioğlu and food scholar David Dale’s lead as they explain in their new cookbook Anatolia how to construct this delightful spoon salad.
INGREDIENTS
6 ripe tomatoes
1 red onion
1 bunch mint
½ bunch flat-leaf (Italian) parsley
1 cup walnuts
3 green bullhorn peppers (or 1 green capsicum/pepper)
1 green chilli
1 tablespoon sumac
2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses
¼ cup olive oil
1 teaspoon apple vinegar
1 teaspoon sea salt
½ cup pomegranate seeds
METHOD
Quarter the tomatoes, remove the white centres and then finely chop. Finely chop the red onion. Discard the mint and parsley stalks and finely chop the leaves. Finely chop the walnuts. Cut the bullhorn peppers and the chilli in half, and remove the seeds and stalks. Finely chop. Mix all the chopped ingredients together in a salad bowl.
Mix the sumac, molasses, olive oil, vinegar and salt together, pour onto the salad and toss.
Sprinkle the pomegranate seeds on top and serve.
Serves four
Recipes and images from Anatolia by Somer Sovrigliou and David Dale. Published by Murdoch Books.
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