Cooking in
Trail · the Kootenays
Levantine
Fattoush: Fried Bread and Acid-Dressed Salad
A salad of raw vegetables (tomato, cucumber, radish, spring onion, purslane or lettuce) dressed with sumac, lemon, and olive oil, with fried or toasted pieces of flatbread added at the last moment. The bread must be crisp when it enters the salad and slightly softened by the time it reaches the table — the window between too crisp (unpleasant to eat) and too soft (indistinguishable from soggy bread) is short.
‹Swipe for the next dish›
Four in town · one elsewhere in British Columbia · three not yet within reach.
How the 8 are reached
- In town
- 4 · tomatoes, cucumber, spring onions, lemon juice
- Elsewhere in British Columbia
- 1 · pomegranate molasses
- Not yet within reach
- 3 · flatbreads (pitta or similar), stale, purslane or Little Gem lettuce leaves, sumac
I
The Market List
The benchmark for each ingredient, and who stocks it near you. Tap a stockist to go straight to the product.
2
flatbreads (pitta or similar), stale
torn or cut into 3–4 cm pieces
Not yet within reach of Trail · each reach is counted
60 ml
olive oil
for frying
Your own market
300 g
1
6
radishes
thinly sliced
Your own market
4
100 g
purslane or Little Gem lettuce leaves
torn if large
Not yet within reach of Trail · each reach is counted
For the dressing
2 tbsp
sumac
generous; sumac is a primary flavour here, not background seasoning
Not yet within reach of Trail · each reach is counted
3 tbsp
1 tbsp
pomegranate molasses
Origin · LebanonElsewhere in British Columbia · SuperValu Gibsons →
4 tbsp
olive oil
Your own market
1 tsp
fine salt
Your own market
Within reach counts in town, delivered, shipped and the nearest city. A staple counts once it has a local seller. Charted from each shop's own pages; not yet vouched by a cook who shops here.
The larder of Trail →Each tap is counted, so the stockist sees the demand Provenance sends them.
II
The Method
1
Salt the tomato chunks and sliced cucumber lightly and spread them in a colander set over a bowl, so the drawn liquid falls away from the vegetables rather than pooling around them. Leave to drain for at least 20 minutes — the vegetables are ready when the bowl beneath holds a visible pool of liquid. This matters because water still clinging to them would dilute the dressing and turn the fried bread soft before it reaches the table.
2
Heat the 60 ml of olive oil in a wide frying pan over a medium-high flame, so the bread fries rather than steams and achieves a deep, even colour throughout. Add the flatbread pieces in a single layer and fry, turning once, until deep golden and crisp throughout. Lift onto a rack or paper without stacking, so trapped steam cannot undo the crust you have just built; the bread is done when it sounds hollow when tapped.
3
Whisk together the sumac, lemon juice, pomegranate molasses, olive oil, and salt until the dressing is uniformly purple-red and the sumac no longer sits on the surface. Taste it now, before it meets the vegetables, so you can judge its true strength — it should be assertively sour and boldly seasoned, because it will mellow once it contacts the bread and vegetables and you cannot correct it afterwards. Err toward boldness.
From the canon — Fresh pomegranate juice reduced with sugar and lemon juice to a thick, pourable syrup. Pomegranate Molasses: Reduction and Acid Balance →
4
Pat the drained tomatoes and cucumber dry, then combine them in a wide bowl with the radishes, spring onions, and purslane or lettuce; pour over the dressing and turn to coat. This is where the dish lives or dies: add the fried bread pieces only at the last possible moment before the salad goes to the table, because too early and the bread becomes irretrievably soggy, too late and it is unpleasantly hard. The correct window is when the bread retains a slight crispness at its centre but has begun to soften at the edges where it contacts the dressing.
III
Quality Hierarchy
01
Reserve — Sumac sourced from a specialist Levantine supplier, pressed the same season; pomegranate molasses made from nothing but pomegranate juice, reduced; flatbread baked in-house from a Lebanese-style dough, deliberately left to stale overnight; purslane gathered to order.
02
Estate — High-quality commercial sumac with a deep, wine-red colour and no mustiness; a reliable single-ingredient pomegranate molasses; good pitta or similar flatbread from a Middle Eastern bakery, allowed to dry fully; purslane or tender Little Gem from a farmers' market.
03
Market — Supermarket sumac (check the date — it fades quickly); commercial pomegranate molasses blended with added sugars; pitta from the supermarket bread aisle, dried in a low oven if fresh; Little Gem lettuce in place of purslane.
04
House — Any flatbread stale enough to fry without steaming in the pan; lemon juice alone in place of pomegranate molasses; sumac used with particular generosity to compensate for lower potency; the salad vegetables adjusted to what is freshest.
IV
Sensory Tests
◇Sight. Drained vegetables show a visible pool of released water in the bowl beneath the colander; the flesh looks slightly condensed rather than plump and wet.
◇Sound. Fried bread pieces sound hollow when tapped and show an even, deep-golden colour with no pale or translucent patches.
◇Smell. The dressed salad before the bread is added carries a sharp, wine-like scent of sumac over the raw vegetables — if the sourness is not evident on the nose, the dressing needs more sumac or lemon.
◇Touch. Bread pieces at the moment of serving yield slightly at the edges when pressed but retain a firm, dry core — the precise point between crispness and absorption.
◇Where it lives or dies. The dish lives or dies at the moment the fried bread enters the dressed salad: add it too early and it is irretrievably soggy; too late and it is unpleasantly hard — the correct window is brief.
Pillar V
Cross-cuisine parallels are part of membership.
The dishes this one teaches you, across the cuisines — on every recipe.
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VI
What to Pour
The pairing
Ancient Lakes of Columbia Valley Riesling
Ancient Lakes Vineyard — Cave B · Ancient Lakes
Not yet stocked in British Columbia
Wine
From British Columbia
Fort Berens Riesling
Fort Berens Estate Winery · Lillooet
Liberty Wine Merchants · Vancouver →See all 2 →Wine
Without alcohol
Non-alcoholic
Each tap is counted, so the stockist sees the demand Provenance sends them.
Why each one works is part of membership — Enter · from $49 a year →
The whole pairingPillar VII
Origin and lineage are part of membership.
Where the dish comes from and how it came to be — on every recipe.
Enter · from $49 a year
The working kitchen
Sourced through Provenance