Last Updated 09/03/2009 © Villa Ralfa 2009
Gay owned and run accommodation, and lodgings, bed and breakfast hotel and inn for the independent gay travel ler near Hersonissos, Crete, Greece
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Country Salad or Horiatiki
Right all you wonderful people who regularly hang on my every word, this is nice easy recipe for a salad which can be used as a side dish or can be served with fresh bread to make a nice healthy lunch dish. In fact this is really a recipe for the Cretan version of a Greek salad and note that there is no lettuce in it!
Rinse and chop the tomatoes, cucumber, pepper, and purslane, and put them in a bowl, mixing in the chopped onion. Shake the salt, olive oil, and vinegar together and pour over. Place the feta cheese and olives on top, and if you want sprinkle a bit of oregano, fresh or dried over the feta. You can pour over more oil if you wish. If you are serving this with fresh bread then NO butter please, put some olive oil on the bread instead, and when you get to the bottom of the bowl use the bread to mop up all the juices which have collected. Mmmmmm, delicious.
As usual HWMBO has stuck his oar in and says if you can’t get purslane then use rocket or any other ‘bitey’ salad leaves, you can even use a bit of lettuce as long as it is a crunchy sort like the ‘Romaine’ or ‘Cos’ type we grow here. But whatever you use make sure it and all the other ingredients are really fresh, which is not a problem for us here at Villa Ralfa because all of them are grown within about 2km of us!
Ingredients
2 Firm tomatoes
2 Baby cucumbers or about one third of a normal one.
1 Green bell pepper
1 Small onion
1 Cup coarsely chopped purslane
5/6 olives
100gms Feta cheese
4 Tbspns olive oil
1 Tbspns vinegar optional
Salt to taste
2 Firm tomatoes
2 Baby cucumbers or about one third of a normal one.
1 Green bell pepper
1 Small onion
1 Cup coarsely chopped purslane
5/6 olives
100gms Feta cheese
4 Tbspns olive oil
1 Tbspns vinegar optional
Salt to taste
A bit more about Purslane, Portulaca oleracia,
Purslane is a weed which grows wild in the Mediterranean region, it grows quickly and can be invasive so serious farmers will often kill it off!
Purslane contain a lot of linolenic acid which is said to protect the heart and help prevent coronary diseases and cancer.
Cretan recipes usually use it raw and you will sometimes see it mixed with our wonderful thick Greek yogurt!