- In Crete, all of these vegetables have a lot of flavor because they're picking a lot of it within 12 feet of the kitchen door.

- This is an absolutely delicious bite.

Every morsel of the chickpeas has deep, deep flavor in it.

- I really love this dish because it has a ton of protein and yet it's completely vegetarian.

You ready?

Here we go.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - You know, many salad recipes don't travel well, since they depend on the very best local ingredients.

So this week on Milk Street, we want to solve that problem.

We offer three recipes that use powerful ingredients that make them shine in any kitchen.

Now, we start with a simple salad from Crete.

This was taught to us by a nine-year-old at her family's restaurant, Ntounias.

And then two more recipes, a Turkish chickpea salad and then a garlicky lentil and parsley salad with feta.

Please stay tuned.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following: - That meal.

You sautéed, you seared, and you served.

Cooking with All-Clad, bonded cookware designed, engineered, and assembled in the USA for over 50 years.

All-Clad, for all your kitchen adventures.

♪ ♪ - We are going to go to a small village called Drakona, and we are going to visit a small restaurant that's quite special in what it does.

So the person cooking in this place is the owner, and he encourages slow cooking, which basically means not necessarily cooking in a very slow way, but the idea that, you know, everything is seasonal, you grow your food, you have your own animals.

- Right.

It's elemental, it makes you focus on the food.

- It makes you focus on the food and it, you have, you, you devote time.

LEIVADITAKI (speaking Greek): TRILYRAKIS (speaking Greek): LEIVADITAKI: TRILYRAKIS: ♪ ♪ LIBERAKI (speaking Greek): - So, basically, Anna is in charge of Stelios's garden.

- Okay.

- She produces all the food and grows everything for the restaurant.

- Oh, okay.

- LIBERAKI (speaking Greek): - So these are the lettuces she's put down.

- Oh, they're beautiful.

LEIVADITAKI: - That's beautiful.

LIBERAKI: - So it's, like, as you can see, it's just really, um, it's just at its freshest.

LIBERAKI: - So she's got peppers here.

LIBERAKI: - Aubergines.

LIBERAKI: - There's a big pumpkin there.

I'm actually quite excited.

I could just go around with her, I think, for the all five days.

Now, you see... (Liberaki talks in background) - (speaking Greek) I'm coming.

- (chuckles) - Cucumber alert!

(chuckles): Wow, that's a big one.

So this is beetroot, yeah.

And you can eat, obviously, the root, and you can eat the leaf.

Look at this tomato, basically.

So I think there's a lot of people who would kind of see this and go, "Oh, this tomato is not good."

Unless you've eaten loads of these funny-shaped, not-perfect vegetables growing with no intervention other than water, and some just kind of environmentally friendly techniques, you don't know what you're missing.

♪ ♪ - (speaking Greek): ♪ ♪ - So the good news is, we spent some time in Crete, a lovely place to be, and we had a fabulous salad, a Cretan salad called dakos.

And essentially, you put in everything, including the kitchen sink.

Roasted beets, potatoes, greens, vegetables, cucumbers, tomatoes.

And the bad news is, of course, in Crete, all of these vegetables have a lot of flavor, because they're picking a lot of it within 12 feet of the kitchen door.

You come here and you want to replicate, let's say, a Greek salad or an Israeli salad.

The produce isn't quite as good, so we had to figure out a way to first simplify it and also add a lot of flavor.

So no matter where you're getting your tomatoes, for example, this is going to taste great.

So the first thing we start with is a trick.

And you can do this anytime you want to serve tomatoes without cooking them.

We cut them into six wedges.

Now we're going to salt them and let them sit for a few minutes.

And what that does is draws out some of the moisture, but it also intensifies the flavor of the tomato.

So anytime, as I said, if you're going to serve tomatoes raw, you can use that trick, so we'll let that sit there just while we're preparing everything else.

This recipe also starts with something we don't normally have here, which is barley rusk, essentially, bread that's been twice-baked, so it's very dry.

It's good for keeping it around a long time.

The reason it's great in this recipe, of course, is because the juices from all the dressing and the vegetables isn't going to soften the bread.

So we needed to find a good substitute for that.

So you can take a sourdough bread or a whole wheat bread, actually, would be great, as well.

Cut that into cubes, add a little bit of olive oil to it.

We're going to toss that around, put that on a baking sheet.

We're going to put this in a very hot oven, 450, for ten or 12 minutes.

By the way, if you want to do this for a typical salad at home, you can actually do this in a skillet, as well.

Let me use my hands, because that's better.

So this goes into a hot oven.

Meanwhile, we'll do the dressing.

A little bit of olive oil, of course.

We're using red wine vinegar here.

You could use any vinegar of your choice.

I prefer a sort of low-acid vinegar, personally.

And a half-teaspoon of salt and pepper, as well.

And we're going to be careful about how much we're using this-- so the dressing's done, the bread's go in the oven.

We'll be back and finish up our dakos, our Cretan salad.

So, as I said, we had a problem, which was to invent this recipe so it would work with any kind of produce.

So you can see we have some powerhouse ingredients.

We have raisins, we have sun-dried tomatoes, arugula's spicy, feta cheese, olives, and of course, our dressing.

And a little secret ingredient at the end.

So let's get started.

We have the bread, which has now been essentially dried and toasted.

Tomatoes have now sat for maybe 15 minutes or so, released some of their water, and their flavor should be a little more intensified, onions, or half onions sliced across, so that.

And of course, cucumber, which is in almost all Greek salads.

So now we have our dressing.

But we're only going to use half of it right now.

And we're going to dress the salad and let some of that dressing soak into that bread, which has been dried in the oven.

Let me toss that.

And by the way, when you're tossing salads, toss it two or three times longer than you think you need.

That way the dressing really coats everything and you end up using less dressing, which is great.

Most people overdress their salads.

Okay, so we'll let this sit for a few minutes to let the dressing get absorbed by that dried bread we just took out of the oven.

We'll come back and finish up our Cretan salad.

So the dressing's had a few minutes to soak into the bread.

Let's just chop up a few olives.

So now we start adding the powerhouse ingredients.

Olives went in, raisins.

There's a little bit of sweet and sour together.

Sun-dried tomatoes.

Arugula.

Now you can add all the rest of the dressing or, if you're like me, I'm cautious.

I'm going to add some of it, but not all of it.

And then I'm going to toss for quite a while to really get everything mixed up here and coated.

And then I'll taste it.

And if there's enough dressing, I won't add any more.

This looks like it's going to be enough dressing, okay.

Yeah, that's going to look good.

Let me take a little taste.

Cucumber.

Mm.

Plenty of dressing.

And some feta cheese.

In Crete, they have a different kind of cheese.

Feta is the closest we can come to that, but it's quite good.

So I'll do a serving.

Now, we have one other ingredient.

In Crete, they use a grape molasses.

That's a very common ingredient around the Mediterranean.

We're going to use something that's a little more available here, which is a pomegranate molasses.

You can get that at any supermarket.

And what it is is nothing more than pomegranate juice that's been cooked down.

It has a little bit of sweetness to it, but it's also sour, it's sweet and sour at the same time.

It's often used in the Middle East, for example, with tabbouleh.

It's actually used in that salad.

So there you have our dakos salad, our Cretan salad.

It's a salad you can make, really, any month of the year because we have some real powerhouse ingredients in here.

We finished it off with a sprinkle of feta and a little bit of pomegranate molasses.

So, Cretan salad any time of year.

♪ ♪ - Today I'm going to show you a Turkish chickpea salad that comes via Özlem Warren.

Now, this is one of a family of salads that is based on raw onions.

This one is called nohut piyazi-- piyaz means onion.

The first thing that's interesting about this recipe is a little hack that I'm excited to share with you.

It starts with chickpeas-- I have canned chickpeas that have been drained and rinsed.

And we're going to add a lot of flavor using this technique.

I'm going to start with some spice, this is Aleppo pepper.

Very smoky and delicious and a little bit fruity.

This is gonna go in.

Next, I'm going to add sumac-- look at this.

Earthy, red, and it's tangy and citrusy.

It's available quite frequently now.

If you can't find it, you can skip it, but if you can, I highly recommend it.

In goes my sumac.

I have here some cumin.

Gonna add some salt and pepper.

And finally some oil.

Give this a mix, and here is the trick.

I am going to cover this and microwave it for a couple of minutes.

What this is going to do is expand the beans, and as they cool, they're going to absorb all of that flavor.

So every bite is going to be super-, super-flavorful.

It's a great trick.

So this is all mixed.

I'm going to cover this, pop it in the microwave, and we'll be right back.

So my chickpeas have been microwaved, and as they cool, they're going to absorb the maximum amount of flavor.

So I'm going to leave them for about ten minutes to cool, and turn my attention to the raw onions.

I'm going to add some garlic here, and some lemon juice to mellow out the bite.

And in goes my garlic.

Give that a stir.

So this is going to sit for a few minutes to mellow while my chickpeas finish cooling.

So my chickpeas have cooled, my onions have mellowed.

It's time to put them together.

So a salad like this traditionally would use fresh tomatoes.

But from Musa Dagdeviren of Istanbul, we learned a little trick.

We're going to use sun-dried tomatoes packed in olive oil.

They're toothsome, umami-rich, and they don't dilute the dressing.

In those go.

Last couple of things, some fresh herbs.

I have chopped parsley here.

Beautiful.

And I'm going to chop up some basil.

So my basil is chopped, and this is smelling super-fresh and delicious.

Let's give this a final mix.

My salad is mixed and I'm ready to plate it.

So here is my salad all ready.

I'm going to finish it with a generous glug of olive oil.

And a sprinkling of Aleppo pepper.

♪ ♪ Ready to eat.

So here it is, our Turkish chickpea salad.

This is a wonderful salad to serve on the side with meats, kebabs, and other rich dishes.

And it also makes for a great vegetarian light main course with some warm pita on the side.

This is an absolutely delicious bite.

Every morsel of the chickpeas has deep, deep flavor in it.

I can taste the Aleppo pepper and the sumac.

This is a wonderful, wonderful salad.

Highly recommend it.

♪ ♪ - (chuckling): Everybody is wrong about salad dressing.

I've had this fight for 40 years now about making an emulsion for a French vinaigrette.

Travel around the world, nobody else is making emulsions for salads-- they might put some lemon juice on greens or a little bit of oil or a little bit of both.

The problem is that for some reason, in this country, people use, let's say, a red wine vinegar like this.

It's very high in acid, it's six to seven percent acid.

And so who in their right mind would want to put a really strong acidic ingredient on tender greens?

You don't do that.

And the reason you make an emulsion is to take the oil and the water, which is the vinegar, and make an emulsion, which sort of softens the blow of that high acidity.

Well, the easiest thing to do is not use the seven percent acid vinegar.

So a good rice wine vinegar, for example, tends to be in the four percent range.

Or this is a Calamansi vinegar made from sour oranges, which has a little bit of sweetness to it, which balances the harshness of the vinegar.

So if you use a mild vinegar, you don't need to make an emulsion.

Here's what I do.

Get a good vinegar, under five percent acidity.

And then, by the way, you don't need to use olive oil.

If you go to Austria, for example, they might use grapeseed oil, but you can use olive oil if you like, and then a little, a little more olive oil than vinegar.

Now, two other things I like to do, which really makes a great salad.

A very coarse salt, like a sea salt, is nice.

Instead of putting that in your "emulsion," put that directly onto the greens.

You get big punches of salt, instead of diluting the salt and dissolving it in the vinegar and the oil.

Now, the last thing-- this is optional, you can or cannot do-- I love za'atar.

It's a very common Middle Eastern spice blend.

It has za'atar in it, which is actually a wild herb, a little bit like marjoram or thyme.

And it has some ground-up sumac-- these are small, slightly sour red berries-- and some sesame seeds, and put that in.

As you notice, I put very little vinegar on it and very little oil.

And then I also like to use my hands.

Now, if you don't take enough time to toss your salad, you're not going to get things nicely dressed.

And that's why people overdress their salads.

They don't, they only do this for maybe five or ten seconds.

It may take 30 seconds or even a minute to toss.

And then you get a nice, even coating.

And you want to lightly coat the leaves.

You don't want to drown them in the dressing.

So the rules are, use a very mild, low-acid vinegar.

Don't put too much vinegar and oil on it.

Use coarse salt right onto the leaves so you get a pop of saltiness, which is nice.

And if you like, you can add a little za'atar, as well.

Finally, dress your salad and then mix it by hand.

Do that for up to a minute so you nicely coat everything nice and evenly, so that way you never have to make an emulsion again.

♪ ♪ - Today we're going to be making a really wonderful main dish salad, garlicky lentil salad with parsley and feta.

I really love this dish because it has a ton of protein, and yet it's completely vegetarian.

So the first thing I'm going to start doing is, I'm going to brown some garlic in extra virgin olive oil.

And these are garlic cloves that I have smashed and peeled.

And while this is heating up, this oil's heating up, I'm going to talk a little bit about the kinds of lentils that you want to use in this recipe.

We want to use a really nice, firm lentil.

These are yellow lentils here, and they will definitely break down and turn mushy.

They're really wonderful in soups and things like that, but not for a salad.

And then there's also green lentils, which are definitely more firm, but you really want to be careful that you don't overcook them, because they can get a little mushy if they are overcooked, but you can use them in this recipe.

And then this is our preferred lentil.

This is a French lentil, or a lentille du Puy.

And they're really small, and they're nice and firm, and they really hold their shape well, and they're really wonderful for this kind of preparation.

I'm going to go ahead and check on my garlic.

Just give it a little stir.

We don't want to burn them.

Okay, so this garlic looks great.

It's starting to brown on the edges.

It smells amazing.

I'm going to add ground cumin and a little bit of cloves.

This is going to add such a nice flavor to the lentils.

You just want to cook it for about 30 seconds until it's nice and aromatic.

All right, and that's it.

And now I'm going to add the lentils.

These have been rinsed and drained.

And then I'm going to add the kosher salt.

And then four cups of water.

Okay, so they come to a boil, I'm going to go ahead and put a lid on the pan, gonna reduce the heat to low, and we're gonna let these simmer for about 30 to 40 minutes until they're just done.

Okay, so these lentils are done, I have drained them, and I'm going to let them cool to room temperature.

They're almost there, and as you can see, the garlic basically just broke down right in there.

And the flavor is going to be nice and muted.

It's not like you're going to get a bite of, like, really sharp garlic, and you want to make sure that you give it a couple of fluffs to kind of break up the lentils while they're cooling.

I'm going to set those aside.

Okay, now I'm going to make the dressing.

Going to take one lemon.

And what you want is about a quarter-cup of lemon juice.

All right, I'm going to go ahead and pour the lemon juice over this bowl here-- I have two shallots that I've sliced nice and thinly.

And the reason we're doing this is, the acid from the lemon juice helps to mute the sharp onion flavor.

So I'm going to give that a little stir.

And then I'm just going to let that sit for a few minutes.

And while that is sitting, I'm gonna go ahead and chop an entire bunch of parsley, because that is the main ingredient in the salad.

Okay, so it doesn't need to be super-fine.

It's kind of nice to get some larger pieces in the salad.

Okay, so now I'm ready to assemble all the ingredients and finish our salad.

All right, I'm going to go ahead and add the parsley.

This is great, this makes it so nice and fresh.

Okay, I'm going to add the onions and the lemon juice.

Another thing I love about this salad is, you don't have to make the dressing ahead of time on the side.

Everything just mixes together in the bowl.

It makes it nice and easy.

Add a little bit of salt.

And some pepper.

And then I'm going to add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil.

And then we're just going to toss it together and that's it.

Okay, so I've transferred the salad now into a bowl, serving platter.

I'm just going to add the feta on top.

Which adds a really nice sharp bite against the nice aromatic lentils.

And then I'm just going drizzle a little more olive oil.

And that's it, we're done.

And we're ready to eat.

I'm really excited to try this.

Gonna make sure I get lots of nice shallots, lots of feta.

There's so much parsley.

This looks great.

Mm.

Lentils have perfect texture, a nice bite to them.

And they have so much flavor from cooking with all that garlic and the cumin and the cloves.

And then you've got this nice sharp bite from the lemon, this nice brightness, and the shallots.

So this is garlicky lentil salad with parsley and feta.

It's a wonderful salad that stands on its own as a main dish and also works great as a side.

And it's really, really easy.

You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season of Milk Street at MilkStreetTV.com.

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Call 855-MILK-177 or order online.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following: - That meal.

You sautéed, you seared, and you served, cooking with All-Clad, bonded cookware designed, engineered, and assembled in the U.S.A. for over 50 years.

All-Clad, for all your kitchen adventures.

♪ ♪