Recipe 5 & 6: Mezze Platter - Part 3 (pita with veggies and fattoush)

Although, I made both the dishes, it would be great to make only one at a time. Most of the ingredients are similar. Both the dishes don’t require any cooking and hence the preparation time is to just get all the cutting and slicing veggies. Easy to make and very healthy!!!

Ingredients

Pita Breads	12 nos	Got 3 pkts from the market
Iceberg lettuce	1	Almost 200 gms
Cucumber	1	Vertical thin slices
Carrot	1	Vertical thin slices
Red capsicum	1	Vertical thin slices
Yellow capsicum	1	Vertical thin slices
Lemon Juice	1 tbspn
Pepper powder	To taste	Use white pepper powder, if you can
Salt	To taste

Method

I have peculiar style of slicing carrots and cucumbers. Whenever you want vertical slices to put in a salad or sauted veggies, I never use the knife. Instead, I use a peeler and go on peeling carrot / cucumber till the end. This gives very fine slices without much efforts

1.    Peel carrots and cucumbers in the way described above

2.    Thinly cut juliennes of red and yellow capsicum, after taking off those seeds

3.    Dress these slices with lemon juice, pepper powder and salt and leave aside

4.    Cut each pita in two parts and toast them on a pan / tawa (once the pita is cut into two, the individual pitas open to form a pocket)

5.    Spread a liitle humus inside the pita pocket, arrange a nice lettuce leaf and fill it with the veggies

6.    You are ready to gorge (instead of making this, place all of this on the dining table and let people (or guests) make them on their own)

Fattoush

Ingredients

Green capsicum	1	Cut in cubes
Tomatoes	2	Cut in cubes
Cucumber	1	Vertical thin slices
Bread slices	2 or 3	Alternatively, you can use ready-made croutons from market
Iceberg lettuce	10 – 12 leaves	Torn into small pieces
Black olives	5 to 6	You can also use or add green olives
Coriander	Some twigs
Salt	To taste

For the dressing

Olive oil – 3 tpsns

White Vinegar – 1 tbspn

Lemon Juice – 2 tbpsn

Slat – to taste

Black peppercorns – 12 to 15 pods

Coriander

Fresh Mint leaves – 3 to 4 twigs

Method

1.    Heat olive oil in a pan and sauté the bread pieces on medium heat to make croutons. Easier way is to buy them from the market

2.    Mix all the ingredients given in the dressing and whisk it well (I use mortar and pestle for crushing peppercorns, that brings out the flavor and adds crunch)

3.     In a big bowl, tear the lettuce and add the diced veggies and the dressing. Mix well

4.    Add croutons to this mixture and serve

5.    This is a cold salad and can be just had on its own or as a side dish

Note: Add some oregano to add that extra zing in the dish