Cookbook author Emily Richards loves serving this salad with fresine, a long pasta similar to fettucine. Then, once most of the tomato and cucumber is eaten, you can break up the pasta to soak up all the tasty vinegar dressing. This is perfect to add to a weeknight meal. Using in-season, hearty plum tomatoes adds lots of flavour and prevents a soupy salad, if you don’t want to soak it up with fresine.
From the cookbook Per La Famiglia: Memories and Recipes of Southern Italian Home Cooking by Emily Richards, Whitecap Books.
Serves 4
Salad Ingredients
4 plum tomatoes
1 English cucumber
Half a small sweet onion, thinly sliced (optional)
3 Tbsp (45 mL) extra virgin olive oil
3 Tbsp (45 mL) red or white wine vinegar
1 tsp (5 mL) dried oregano
1 tsp (5 mL) salt
1/4 tsp (1 mL) fresh ground pepper
Directions
Remove cores from tomatoes and cut into chunks. Place in a large bowl. Cut cucumber in half lengthwise; cut into slices. Add to bowl along with onion. In a small bowl, whisk together oil, vinegar, oregano, salt and pepper. Pour over salad and toss to coat.
Note: You can use field cucumbers, but scrape out the seeds before slicing.
Recipe and photo courtesy of Per La Famiglia: Memories and Recipes of Southern Italian Home Cooking by Emily Richards, Whitecap Books. Professional Home Economist, Emily Richards, a specialist in Food and Nutrition celebrates the loving tradition of passing on treasured family recipes from generation to generation. Whether you hail from an Italian family or are just a lover of Italian food, Per La Famiglia is a feast for the eyes and stomach with easy to follow recipes which will allow you to prepare Southern Italian food for your loved ones.