hey bakers jonquil Pepe kitchen here and today I'm channeling all of my Greek heritage to make a classic Greek salad this is a quintessentially pleasing salad that everyone should love there's no filler in here just flavor and it comes together in a snap
let's get started let's get to chopping starting with one gigantic English cucumber English cucumbers have really really thin skins so you need to peel them they taste delicious if you're using a regular cucumber maybe peel it
it's kind of up to you you can cut them in round slices or you can cut the cucumber lengthwise and then have kind of more manageable bite-sized half circles my grandfather and his brother were Greek from Greece and when I worked with them in our machine shop as a child operating heavy machinery making aircraft parts we'd have a lunch break and it would almost be like a real Greek meal and I'd have to tell you like a Mediterranean salad at simplest will be cucumbers tomatoes vinegar and oil with whatever seasonings and then you're gonna serve that with maybe some like dried bread sup the cucumber aside
and now let's chop up a red onion nice and slices you want the acid that are gonna be in the dressing to kind of like tamp down the bite of the onion so it'll give you a lot of flavor without that crazy onion taste so thin slices lots of surface area chopped like that that's going to go into my bowl of cucumbers you can add as much or as little as you like
I'm going to give you guidelines in this recipe and in the titles below but if you love cucumbers and hate onions make it work for you it's your salad time for some kalamata olives my favorite I'm going to say to add in maybe third of a cup just give them a chopped in half it's a good idea to still cut them in half even if you love a giant piece of olive in your mouth because even though it says pitted every once in a while one will sneak in that still has that hard stone inside and you're gonna be you know calling a dentist if you chomp into it by accident well that's a good half cup of Olives if I say so myself
we're gonna add some bell pepper in here as well remove those seeds remove the ribs chop chop chop chop chop I've got seven ounces of feta here I can reserve some for later just to kind of sprinkle on top and make it really nice and Freddie but in the meantime just crumble it over your salad this gives you like a nice creaminess and it's also like just delicious I love feta cheese it's a very strong cheese okay it's toss that around with your fingers my hands are clean okay now for the fun part let's make that dressing I'm gonna add in 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil I'm gonna add in a little bit of lemon zest as well the zest of half of a lemon it takes some time one of my favorites I love to use fresh thyme but dry too works as well just strip the leaves off of it
I like to crush it in my fingers it helps to release the oil I didn't give it a chop okay we can add that in there quintessential Greek herb oregano it's so beautiful and I love the aroma once again stripped leaves off of the stock you don't smell anything until you start crushing it and then the oils released and you're in heaven roll the oregano run your fingers just get crush it to help release those oils and then we can give it a rough chop
I'm adding in about two tablespoons once it's chopped now I'm adding in about two tablespoons of red wine vinegar about two teaspoons of honey mustard it'll add a little bit of sweetness as well as some spice finally some lemon juice I'm adding in the juice of half of a lemon translates to maybe two tablespoons
let's shake it up I'm also fine and have a taste test what's nice I'm gonna add a little bit more lemon juice and maybe another half teaspoon of salt take two that's nice mm-hmm this is not a perfectly balanced dressing because there are so many very strong flavors the feta and the olives are gonna come and add in what's missing in this dressing it's kind of light right now but paired with the ingredients will become very substantial and perfect all we have to do now is address our salad pour that on there
I have my one piece of cheese I'm reserving still give it a toss looks amazing this is a perfect make-ahead salad - it's not gonna wilt and I think the flavors kind of come together after they sit for a while for garnish you can add on a couple more oregano seeds and buy a couple I mean dozens once again just crush them up and then take some of the reserved cheese and sprinkle it on top you're all done let's take a taste th
