My Big Fat Greek Salad

[Basilgirl]

I'm making a big fat Greek salad for dinner tonight. I've never been able to duplicate the typical Greek salad dressing at home.

Lemon juice or red wine vinegar? Both? Garlic?

Help.

[Savour Chef]

Definitely red wine vinegar.

A few pinches of fresh (more) or dried (less) oregano.

A good few gulps of olive oil.

Salt and pepper.

That's it.

[fresco]

Greek salad (at least outside of Greece) is one of those dishes that is usually much better at home than at a Greek restaurant, if only because you're likely to use much better ingredients (especially eschewing industrial feta and tomatoes). I like lemon juice, but this is probably a matter of personal preference.

[Savour Chef]

You're right, Fresco. Rarely will you ever find a nice, simple, authentic Greek salad in restaurants.

What I consider a 'real' Greek salad is:

garden-fresh/vine-ripened tomatoes

white onion

cucumber

oregano

barrel-aged feta

kalamata olives

dressing: (as per above post)

red wine vinegar

olive oil

salt and pepper

Even the Greeks in Greece experiment though and if they happen to have red onion then they'll use that, if they have some fresh garden peppers, then they'll also toss a few of those in there too. It's just the iceburg lettuce variety of salads we're used to seeing at Greek restaurants is really a misnomer.

Then again, there is a Greek 'countryside' salad that you never see in restaurants here either - mostly because you can't find the type of greens found in Greece.

That salad consists of:

Various greens (can use mustard, dandelion, escarole, baby spinach etc.)

fresh chopped dill

fresh chopped flat-leaf parsley

freshly chopped scallions (optional)

For this particular salad, it is common to use a lemon-based dressing with the olive oil. And the trick to this one here is to forget everything you know about taking a knife blade to fresh greens - and thinly slice the greens in strips.

If you dress it properly, both salads should have about a half cup of leftover dressing left in the bowl, where the lucky diners get to sop up with freshly baked bread!

[fresco]

That countryside salad sounds like a winner. I'm with you most of the way on the Greek classic, but I do have a horror of cucumbers.

[Gifted Gourmet]

Greek salad (at least outside of Greece) is one of those dishes that is usually much better at home than at a Greek restaurant, if only because you're likely to use much better ingredients (especially eschewing industrial feta and tomatoes). I like lemon juice, but this is probably a matter of personal preference.

since I made a large Greek salad for dinner tonight .... will add the dressing just prior to serving, I make the salad from romaine, tomatoes, red onion slices, cucumbers, kalamata pitted olives (now available here in Atlanta) and Vigo feta ... the dressing is all done in an unmeasured, to taste, fashion: fleur du sel salt, freshly ground black pepper, oregano, red wine vinegar, freshly squeezed lemon juice, EVOO, and 2 cloves of pureed garlic .... I let that sit for the flavors to meld and then add to the salad .... most people don't add garlic, but everyone here likes it so I have continued to use it in spite of its inauthenticity ...

[bilrus]

I really like the version that was in Cook''s Illustrated about a year ago. It used both lemon and red wine vinegar. They also put a little fresh mint and parsley in the salad and roasted red peppers.

I can take or leave the herbs, but love the red peppers.

[fresco]

In the current issue of Simple Cooking, John Thorne takes a long, thoughtful look at Greek salad: "Is it called 'Greek salad" in Greece? Probably not, you would guess, and in fact, in that country it is called horiatiki salata, or, roughly, villagers' salad. But country folk don't call it that, and chances are, they don't eat it, either. Horiatiki salata is an urban fantasy of country life; it has a flavor that the Greeks taste but that a recipe can't convey: yearning for the countryside."

Thorne does, nonetheless, include three Greek salad recipes.

[Kenk]

My recipe is about the same as Savour Chef but here is my take.

sliced Onions

choped parsley

choped Oregano (or dry)

sliced tomatos

sliced Cucumbers

Kalamata olives

slices of Feta Cheese

Extra virgin olive oil

wine vinagar

lemon juice

Layer the onions, spread on some parsley and oregano, layer the tomatos, layer the cucumbers, layer the feta cheese, sprinkle on some parsley and oregano, and the olives. Drench the vegatables with the Olive oil and let stand for a while. Just before serving lightly drizzle on the vinegar and lemon juice.

The more olive oil you add, the more yummy sauce you will have to dunk your bread in.

You only mistake you can make is to add not enough olive oil.

I like to add the parsley to mello out the onion.

[Al_Dente]

One of the things I liked about a Greek Salad when I was in Greece is that usually the feta was served in one big thick slice. I'd kinda eat the salad around it and leave the best for last!

Fresh oregano in the dressing definitely makes it closer to the real thing. Some crusty bread, a little taramasalata and tzatziki, and you're all set.

[mcdowell]

Right on topic is the latest edition of John Thorne's Simple Cooking, just out today, where he goes on in true Thorne fashion for several pages on Greek Salads, or, Horiatiki Salata:

... the dressing, as delicious as it may be, playing the role not of the elegant enhancement but the necessary referee, bringing order and cohesiveness to a collation of peppery, pungent, agressively vegetative greens.

He gives three recipes but, just as I support him, I think you should subscribe and read for yourself, so I won't excerpt any of that here.

*not affiliated at all, just shilling for the hell of it.

[carolswidler]

Fresh dill and fresh lemon juice along with tomatoes, feta, cucumbers red onion and good Greek olive oil. No lettuce.