Fattoush is the Levantine solution to stale bread — a salad built around fried or toasted pieces of flatbread that absorb the sumac-heavy dressing while retaining enough structure to provide textural contrast. It appears throughout Palestinian, Lebanese, and Syrian home cooking as the pragmatic intersection of preservation (using old bread) and celebration (the sumac and pomegranate molasses dressing that distinguishes it from a simple bread 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.
Fattoush succeeds when the sumac-acid dressing is assertive enough to penetrate the bread pieces without becoming overwhelming. It is a salad of contrasts: crisp and soft, raw and fried, sour and sweet. The bread is not a garnish — it is the structural element around which everything else is organised.
- Fry the bread pieces rather than toast — fried bread absorbs the dressing more slowly and retains crispness longer - Salt vegetables and drain before dressing — tomato and cucumber release water aggressively, which dilutes the dressing and softens the bread prematurely - Sumac must be high quality and used generously — it is not background seasoning in fattoush, it is a primary flavour - Dress immediately before serving — bread added too early becomes irretrievably soggy - Pomegranate molasses in the dressing is not universal but produces the most complex version Sensory tests: - Correctly timed: bread still has slight crispness when the salad reaches the table, just beginning to soften at the edges where it has contacted the dressing
OTTOLENGHI JERUSALEM — Technique Entries OT-01 through OT-25