I’m a salad person through and through.
I have six cookbooks on my bookshelves that are dedicated entirely to salads. I have a new one on order. When I buy a new cookbook, one of the first sections I check out is the salad section.
To me a salad is essential to make a meal, a thing of beauty, a health food and on and on.
This salad from Yotam Ottolenghi’s extraordinary cookbook Jerusalem is all of the above. Plus there is the tart bite of the sumac and chile flakes and the delightful crunch of the almonds and pita.
Don’t let the sumac keep you from trying this recipe. It is available at most supermarkets, at Trader Joe’s, and, of course, at all Middle Eastern markets. Sumac is usually used in powdered form and is ground from the berries of the flowering sumac plant. Interestingly, sumac is a distant cousin of the cashew and the mango. If you want to know more, you can find a link to a thorough article about sumac from Eater: here.
Make this one!
You can buy his cookbook at your local bookstore or on Amazon here. Interestingly, on Amazon the cookbook is rated 5 stars by 87% of the 4913 reviewers. There are only 45 grumpy reviewers who give the book a 1 star rating and most of those are people whose book arrived damaged.
Mediterranean Spinach Salad With Dates and Almonds
Ingredients
- 1 T. white wine vinegar (I used cranberry pear flavored white balsamic)
- 1/2 medium onion (very thinly sliced)
- 4 Medjool dates (sliced into quarters lengthwise)
- 2 T. unsalted butter
- 2 T. extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 pita bread (roughly torn into small pieces)
- 1/2 C. whole unsalted almonds (roughly chopped)
- 2 t. sumac
- 1/2 t. chile flakes
- 5 oz. baby spinach
- 2 T. fresh lemon juice
- salt
Directions
- Step 1 To make the date/onion mixture, put thinly-sliced red onion into a small bowl along with the sliced dates. Add 1 T. vinegar and toss. Let this mixture marinate for at least 20 minutes.
- Step 2 To prepare the pita bread mixture, melt the butter in a large pan. Add 1 T. of the olive oil. To the heated oils, add the pita pieces and the chopped almonds. Sauté this mixture until the pita pieces are a golden brown. You want them to be crunchy, too. Remove pita mixture from heat and add in sumac, chile flakes and a generous pinch of salt. Set aside.
- Step 3 Just before serving, prep your baby spinach. Put spinach in a large bowl and toss with the pita mixture and the red onion mixture. Whisk the remaining 1 T. olive oil and the lemon juice until it is emulsified. Toss the lemon and oil mixture with the salad. Add salt to taste. Serve immediately. This salad does not keep! The pita pieces quickly lose their crunch.
