06 Jun Feta, Cucumber, onion seed salad with Pan con tomate

Finally with the arrival of warm weather we’ve wanted to eat salads instead of a long winter of stews and soups. Jon and I have had some time without the boys this week so we’ve been making the most of eating whatever we like, with no little boy compromise. So I thought I’d share a beautiful salad Jon made a few days ago and one of my favourite ways to eat bread: pan con tomate. These are both very simple dishes, as most of our cooking is, placing most importance in the ingredients. When the ingredients are the best, the simplest dish can taste exceptional.

Feta Salad Ingredients:

1 pack of good feta

Half a large cucmber

A good grab of mint

Half a teaspoon of nigella/onion seeds

Extra virgin olive oil

Cider Vinegar

Fresh lemon juice

Black Peper

Method:

Drain and crumble the feta into a bowl, dice the cucumber and add to feta. Roughly chop mint, toast onion seeds in a dry pan until they release a scent. Add mint and onion seeds to the mix, drizzle with olive oil, squeeze juice from lemon and add a splash of cider vinegar. A good twist of pepper, mix and transfer to a serving dish.

Pan con Tomate Ingredients;

Sourdough bread works best here in my opinion, and is the most traditional, although it’s also good on baguette bread.

Your finest extra virgin olive oil

Juicy tomatoes

Garlic clove sliced in half

Salt

Method:

This works well on slightly stale bread, but if it isn’t stale, toast the bread slightly. Drizzle with oil, rub the garlic all over the surface of the bread, take half a tomato and squeeze the juice onto the bread then season with salt. Et voilà!

Another controversial method that my mum would do is to blend the tomato, salt, garlic and oil and spread over the toasted bread so you don’t waste a single bit of the tomato. It’s up to you, I don’t believe in snobby rules when it comes to cooking. Whatever works for you!

We also added a tomato, olive, parsley, caper salad, a poached eggs and a bottle of red wine. The bread was then used to mop up all the salad juices, the best bit in my opinion.

While we were eating, a red and black winged butterfly flew in through the open front door. These are the days and moments that keep me going on the dark days. I hope you’ve had a lovely weekend.

Love

Java x