Salat Aravi - Simple Arab Salad

Blogging Marathon # 38 , Week 3 Day : 2

Theme : Soups and Salads
Course : Starters & Appetizers

This salad recipe is very simple yet a prominent part of Middle Eastern Cuisine, is served with rice dish such as Mujadarah (Lentil Rice dish), Kabbsa or Kabseh ( Whole Spice infused Basmati rice), Machboos or Maqluba (Rice and Chicken). It is often served as a part of Mezze - selection of small dishes which are used as spreads.

In the Arab World it is highly desired to chop salads very finely and in tiny bits. It is on one's chopping skills how tiny you can chop, it is important to have uniform size of all vegetables dices.

As you might have seen in many places that the Arab Salad made from lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, onion and rocket too, but the original salad does not include lettuce so it is called vegetable salad not green salad.

Similar salad recipes in the Middle East inculdes the Persian Salad Shirazi, Turkish Choban and the Israeli Salat Yerakot and Indian Kachumber Salad.

Preparation time : 15 mins

Cooking time: Nil

Serves: 4

Difficulty Level : Medium

Ingredients :

• 2 medium cucumber
• 2 medium tomatoes
• 1 small onion
• 1 small capsicum or bell pepper
• few mint leaves - chopped
• 1/2 bunch or 1/4 cup chopped parsley

For Dressing:

• juice of 1/2 lime or 1 tbsp lemon juice
• salt to taste
• 1/2 tsp black pepper powder
• 1 tbsp olive oil

Method:

• Wash the vegetables in plenty water, pat dry.
• Finely chop cucumber and tomatoes in uniform size.
• Dice onions and capsicum into very fine dices.
• Mix all in the bowl and check for balance of colour i.e. red and green colour if one is more adjust with the other. Add chopped mint and parsley leaves.
• In another bowl mix lime juice, salt, pepper and oil well.
• Pour over the salad and toss well.

Notes:

• Finely chop the cucumber and tomatoes
• If tomatoes and cucumber are more juicy remove the pulp or else you will end up in juicy salad.
• Can serve the salad cold. If serving salad cold add dressing just before serving.

Did you know:

• Cucumbers are technically described as a fruit just like tomatoes.
• Cucumber is more than 90% water
• Cucumber are natural diuretics
• Cucumber contains most of the Vitamin that you need everyday.
• Cucumber helps to avoid hangovers and bad headaches just eat few slices of cucumber before going to bed.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#38 

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Regards, 

Briju Parthasarathy