Bread and Butter: Greek for beginners: Dakos salad

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July 28, 2006

Greek for beginners: Dakos salad

Greek salads do not come any easier or simpler than this one. And to be honest this is a Cretan salad, and you do know that the people of Crete are among the healthiest on the planet. Their secret is lots and lots of extra virgin olive oil.

This is my version of dakos and I only diverted from the original because I had run out of feta cheese. So I used greek yogurt -full fat, unflavoured, no sugar, of course- and a sprinkle of parmesan for texture.

It is a bit like a bruschetta but it is much bigger and a meal in itself. Some people add onion but I think it detracts from the freshness of the salad. You can also add some cucumber. Do not put lots of different vegetables though. The idea is to taste the olive oil and the tomato.

For 2 servings if it is a salad or 1 serving as a main meal

A barley rusk
Some water
One tomato
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 green bell pepper
1 cup crumbled feta cheese (or in this case 2 spoonfuls of greek yogurt and a sprinkle of parmesan)
A sprinkle of oregano (optional)

Take a barley rusk. Wet it a bit. Just a bit, maybe 3-4 tablespoons of water.
You don’t need to skin off the tomato as the skin is going to come off when you grate it. So, yes, grate the tomato. Do not put it into a food processor, it will turn to water and we don’t want it to be runny.
Place the tomato on top of the rusk. Pour 2 spoons of olive oil on the tomato. Chop the bell pepper and arrange it on the tomato. Put some crumbled feta cheese or as I have done here –and this is just my version, real dakos is with feta or mizithra cheese- two spoonfuls of greek yogurt and a sprinkle of cheese. If you do my version with the yogurt skip the water in the beginning.
Sprinkle with oregano or some olives if you have them and serve.

Posted by SteviMoshogianni | Permalink

Comments

Hi Stevi,

Lovely picture! That looks like quite a mouthful - yum!

Posted by: Catherine Ross | July 29, 2006 at 01:44 AM

Nice... I will try.
How do you use halloumi? I only learnt one recipe but maybe you can suggest more...
Ciao.

Posted by: Orchidea | July 29, 2006 at 01:06 PM

Pretty picture indeed, plus 1) I've had great dakos in Greece twice (in Volos and in Athens) and 2) one very nice Greek blogger gave me a bag of barley rusks, so i can make dakos myself:)
Efharisto!

Posted by: Pille | July 30, 2006 at 04:36 PM

This looks amazingly yummy! I love Greek food...I was there for a month or so and ate Greek food everyday and never tired of it! :) I really miss Greek yogurt now...nothing like it...

Thanks for sharing this recipe! I will try it very soon...only thing is we have no barley husks here...what would you suggest as a passable substitute?

Posted by: joey | August 03, 2006 at 06:20 PM

mm i wanna taste this
im planning to go to greece
soon actually :) even made a website about it check it out
looking for people to have fun with it's all on the website
peter http://moonchild.phpnet.us/tgp.htm

Posted by: moonchild | August 04, 2006 at 05:42 PM

I'll be entering bachelor life in about a month (after being a student for four years) so your recipes will be dead handy.I'm salivating as I write this :)

Thanks!

Posted by: The Passenger | August 04, 2006 at 07:31 PM

Joey
any twice baked barley bread would do i think.
it is going to resemble the taste, if not the look.

Posted by: chloe | August 09, 2006 at 10:35 PM

We can't get Greek yogurt where we are in Hawaii, but it is available on the Mainland. Good feta cheese is easy to find, however.
I never thought of grating a tomato. I'm going to give it a try.

Posted by: Hattie | August 15, 2006 at 04:59 AM

I stumbled across your blog while I was doing some online research. I'm a big fan of salads--in the summer, I practically live on them exclusively--so I'm always on the lookout for something different and delicious sounding. This one looks like a keeper!

Posted by: thebizofknowledge | August 18, 2006 at 02:59 AM