How To Make Traditional Greek Salad | Chef Wonderful

[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]

Chef: "I want to play in the garden, and I'm really excited today. Do you know why? We're going to be cooking one of the most primal and the important dishes mankind has ever eaten: a fresh garden salad. Now, the one I'm talking about is unique. You may not know this, but some of the oldest people on earth alive today are found in the Middle East, specifically in the Mediterranean, on islands that are quite steep. They have to walk a lot. They eat a lot of olive oil, a lot of fresh vegetables, a lot of fish, and they live past 100 years old. This is one of the reasons today I'm going to make you a Greek salad.

I learned how to make it when I was a child living on the island of Cyprus. We would often eat this for lunch. The ingredients have to be all 100% fresh. Now, I don't fool around when it comes to fresh herbs and spices; I grow my own. That's why we're right here. You see these pots? I make sure that every day, if I need mint, if I need parsley, if I need oregano, I've got it. I come out with the basket, and I cut my own. I tell you, this is the way to go! I want a little fresh mint.

[Music]

Chef: "Save all you know, when you just take a leaf like that and you smell that, it's so deliciously fresh and sweet and minty. All right, here we go! Let me introduce you to the ingredients today. First of all, the basic core to this salad: it doesn't have any lettuce in it. This is made from the core fundamentals of the Mediterranean type. We're going to have some pepper, cucumbers—you can decide which ones you like—all kinds of different tomatoes, and I've chosen some heirloom tomatoes. The classic red onion, but here's the secret that so many people don't know anything about: there is a spice in the Middle East called zatar.

They say, 'Exactly! It's spelled za'atar.' Now, this is a very fundamental basic. It's been around for thousands of years, and it's the spice that gives all kinds of flavor to all kinds of different dishes. So with the heirloom, the whole concept here of these Greek salads is chunkiness. You don't want razor-thin tomato; you want chunky. Everything's chunky-bunky about this salad because you're putting it into a salad inside a pita later on. So you want that chunky monkey action!

So, the best way to start with the tomatoes: take off the top, get a little base on the bottom, and now cut into chunks. All right, don't be afraid to experiment! Time will help you. Look at the chunkiness here. Now we’re gonna go to the cube. This is the core to any Mediterranean salad—you want to start with cucumber. Now you take the two bottoms off using your blade, but remembering the chunk is the bunk.

And what I like to do with this piece is often just test the cucumber. I keep it back, and like it’s almost a bagel."

[Music]

Chef: "Spectacular! Whoop! Now at this point, you're going to do something very interesting. You're going to introduce to these first elements a little bit of the za'atar. Even though the za'atar will be coming into the actual dressing, what I like to do is tease the vegetables with a little sprinkle of the za'atar so that the flavor starts to be introduced right into the flesh of the tomato and the vegetable. All of it, of course, the onion. Red onions are a huge debate in the salad community when they talk about this because some people don't like the taste of onion in this particular dish. I love it; it adds a crunchiness to it!

Now, on the chunky monkey side on this, I don't want big chunks of onion; they’re too overpowering. I want to go thinner, almost string-like—that's what I like. So I cut the onion so that I can do the medallions and form little ringlets. That's what works. Now this is where the real secret starts. A lot of people think, 'Oh, well, I’ll just buy some dressing.'

I'm starting; I'm going to be using a juicer for the first two lemons, and then I'm going to hand squeeze the last one as one of my secrets to get a little palpable personality—a little texture in the actual dressing. So we start with the classic: just take a lemon, cut it in half, put it in the juicer, see like this, and of course, the juicer takes out the pulp. Now here's another little secret: a lot of people think, 'Well, you just put lemon and olive oil together.'

Here's a really interesting way to go if you want to introduce a different element—something that people say, 'What is that? I'm not sure what you've done there.' That's when you introduce a little drop of lime juice. Oh! Now I'm using a really crazy, expensive olive oil called 'Olio Reserva.' It's from Flora. This is brought to America by a man named Frank Giustra, who absolutely loves his trees in Italy, and he has this handmade. The price he charges for this is a joke; it's ridiculously expensive. But is it worth it? I have to admit, yes, it’s spectacular!

But I’m using it because when it comes to olive oils, let me tell you a little secret: You should always put a little bit on your finger like this—just a little taste of the virgin oil. Oh, magnificent! What we're looking for here is a grassiness—a unique flavor that these trees had when they were pollinated and grew into olives. And so, you get this beautiful—You know, I must tell you something: Olive oils are like wine; you really have to understand the differences of the varietals. This is a particularly beautiful grassy, gorgeous virgin olive oil. I keep it in my wine cellar. As a matter of fact, what am I going to do now? I'm going to introduce it to that lamb.

Oh, here we go! Now what's the right consistency? What percentage should all be olive oil? It's going to float on top of the lemon. There is no specific amount that you put in; you have to have a feel. I generally like to see about around 1/3, because now what I'm going to do is I'm going to whisk into it a little bit of the za'atar. Now this is very important: You want a very tiny whisk, something small, surgical, and precise. You want to take just a little amount out like this. You know, but is that a teaspoon? There's a lemon seed; I'm gonna get rid of that. How’d that get in there?

Okay, here we go! I'm putting it on top. You see the little sesame seeds? They're toasted. Oh, excellent! Now I'm whisking it together to get this into a suspension. All right, there's still a lot of lemon in there, so that's gonna be very tart, but I don't mind that necessarily. But wait, we're not finished; we're almost finished! Remember, we went into the jar there and we got some mint? Remember this fresh mint? And hand-rip them right down! Leave a little parsley. Now this is just a preference; a lot of people say, 'Oh, when you're doing it, parsley in the salad.'

I said, 'What I'm doing is I'm adding different textures.' Now we are there. This looks spectacular! What I'm gonna do first is I'm gonna show you a pita pocket. This is a mountain bread from the Middle East; everybody’s seen pitas. And we’re going to just quickly take it, cutting it in half. All right, so what we're gonna do now is we're going to take the salad, pour some of this fantastic dressing—rush!

Oh, oh yeah! Oh yeah! Then we're going to just—honey, can you get me the little flipper deals? So what I want to do here is just, I’m not beating it up; I don't want to bruise it. I just want to make sure that all the elements of this salad are covered with that fantastic dressing I made. Now, I haven't introduced the olives for a specific reason. First, what I'm going to do now is I'm going to fill up a pocket, mix it up with the big chunks—you’re just introducing tomato with those peppers, with the onions; it all goes into the pita pocket. Then you take out of the brine a few of the olives, and you top it.

If you wanted feta cheese, you could do that too, but I'm not doing that. I've decided to go total vegan on the first bite. All right, here we go! I'm gonna make a mess here, so I put this bowl under it. Oh, the onion, the olives, the cucumbers, the pepper, the pita—the za’atar! I have to have another bite! This reminds me of my youth; like, you have no idea—walking up amongst the sheep and goats to the top of the mountain in the Cypress pines in the beautiful sunshine and having this for lunch.

It is so well! I just wanted to get you through the whole experience of this salad; you can't go wrong with it. Everybody in your family is gonna love this! The secret was the za’atar and a little bit of the lime juice and the lemon and great olive oil. Okay, so what do you think? It's tactile; it's just hard to eat sometimes—it falls apart. That’s part of what makes it special! It’s very, very tasty! But my family and yours—we'll see you soon!"

Chef: "Okay, what goes absolutely great with a salad like this? Well, it’s a fantastically, it’s a blush wine! It is absolutely gorgeous!"

[Music]
[Music]