Middle Eastern Farmers Salad Recipe for Salata Falahiyeh or a Village Salad
This farmers salad recipe for salata falahiyeh makes a simple salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, capsicums, shallots, and fresh herbs with a dressing of extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice. Eaten throughout the Middle East, with provenance in Palestine, it’s also called a Palestinian salad, Arabic salad, village salad, or chopped salad, salata na’ameh. It’s fantastic with kofta, kebabs, grilled meats, fish, and roast chicken.
Servings: 4
Calories: 139kcal
Equipment
Ingredients
- 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp ground cracked black pepper
- 4 large tomatoes vine-ripened
- 2 long Persian cucumbers
- ½ large purple onion
- 1 large red capsicum bell peppers – or 3-4 small capsicums
- 2 tbsp mint fresh, finely chopped
- 2 tbsp Continental parsley fresh, finely chopped
- 1 tbsp dill fresh, roughly chopped
Instructions
- Make the dressing in a small jar or bowl by stirring the extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper together, taste, and adjust to suit your palate.
- Wash, dry and dice the tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, and capsicums into 1-1.5cm pieces, toss them into a salad bowl.
- Add the chopped fresh herbs and combine everything well with a spoon.
- Just before serving, add the dressing to the salad, stir to combine well, try it and adjust to suit your taste.
Notes
Use hand-picked vine-ripened tomatoes like Truss tomatoes, which are very red, sweet and smell like just-picked tomatoes.
Try to get long Persian cucumbers, which have thin skins you can leave on and lots of delicious little seeds in the centre; they’re the tastiest cucumbers.
The purple onions I use are like red Tropea onions and sweet; if you can’t find them use 3-4 small purple shallots
I usually make this salad with a large red capsicum (bell pepper), but I’ve been getting boxes of little capsicums in a variety of colours (usually red, onion and yellow) and use 4-5 of these, which make for a more colourful salad.
Nutrition
Calories: 139kcal | Carbohydrates: 10g | Protein: 2g | Fat: 11g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 8g | Sodium: 306mg | Potassium: 457mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 6g | Vitamin A: 2274IU | Vitamin C: 65mg | Calcium: 33mg | Iron: 1mg