Greek salad days

 

Sunday lunch spot, Almyrida

The iconic Greek salad – cucumber, tomato, onion, feta, olives, olive oil and oregano – celebrates a lot about Greece: the bounty of its fruit and vegetables, the artisanship of producing world-class cheese in an arid, rugged terrain, and luxurious olive oil, which, prized since ancient times, evokes something of that history. You do not have to go far to search for a decent Greek Salad. Ultimately you can’t disguise a bad tomato. As long as those are firm and juicy, you’re halfway there.

Moving on from the classic Greek I have been sampling and experimenting with a few other Greek cheese salad combinations, selecting ingredients that are cheap and plentiful in Crete. The addition of cheese makes for a more substantial light meal than a vegetable salad alone, which is too much like being on a diet.

Greek Salad

The original Greek Salad

Here is my first attempt at Greek salad, served with olive bread. Normally I would only use fresh herbs in uncooked dishes, but in Greece dried oregano is used everywhere, and it actually expunges a significant boost through its companion ingredients. The pack I bought was produced nearby, presumably recently. I think as long as you rotate your dried herbs often enough you’ll get the right flavour (not like me – my oregano at home in London was about four years old!)

Watermelon, cucumber and feta salad

Watermelon, cucumber and feta salad

Watermelon season on the island: every beach shop has a crate full of them on its terrace, farmers drive utes with the back filled with melons and a scale hooked over the side, announcing through a tannoy they are in town and parking up the end of the road to take custom, while delicate black-frocked grandmothers and surly teenage sons are put in charge of manning palm leaf-shaded stalls right along the main highway.

Watermelon and feta is a refreshing sweet and salty partnership. In this version I added cucumber as it’s from the same family as watermelon with a similar texture, just one is sweet and one isn’t… also pink and pale green look pretty together.

Cretan salad

Cretan salad with mizithra cheese

We ordered a variation of Greek Salad at one of our local tavernas in Almyrida, Crete. They had named it Cretan salad and added pieces of Cretan ‘rusks’ as large croutons (rusks here are large pieces of dried bread: it is often found in a simple meze snack called Davos, which is a rusk drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with oregano and topped with chopped tomato and crumbled feta, a bit like bruschetta). Instead of feta in this Cretan salad they added a beautiful soft, fluffy goats cheese called mizithra, which originates in Crete and is a protected product.

Fresh mizithra is similar to ricotta in texture but with a distinct goat’s milk flavour; a favourite breakfast pastry here combines mizithra and honey in a pastry case, all flecked with cinnamon.

Cretan watermelon, cucumber and goats cheese salad

Watermelon, cucumber and goat cheese salad

Taking inspiration from the Cretan salad, I adapted the watermelon and cucumber salad to include the fresh myzirtha cheese. This is not easy to get; even here you can’t buy it packaged, it’s dished up fresh at the deli counter. I would suggest maybe using ricotta and feta crumbled on top, or a very soft young goats cheese. I also added shredded mint leaves and chilli flakes.

3 to 4 small cucumbers or one telegraph cucumber, peeled and cut into large chunks

Quarter of a large watermelon, seeded, and cut into chunks the same size as cucumber pieces

20 mint leaves, shredded finely

1/3 teaspoon chilli flakes (or to taste)

150g mizithra or other soft goats cheese or combination of feta and ricotta

Drizzle of clear, runny honey (optional)

Drizzle of olive oil

Combine cucumber and watermelon pieces in salad bowl with two thirds of the mint leaves and the chilli flakes.

Layer cheese on top with your fingers. Sprinkle remaining mint leaves on top and drizzle with honey (optional) and olive oil.