You might be familiar with the Italian salad known as Panzanella or Panmolle, which hails from the beautiful region of Tuscany where some of the ripest, tastiest tomatoes on earth grow. The tomatoes are combined with torn up stale bread and vinegary dressing, creating a simple and gorgeous salute to summer.
However, this is not that salad. You can google and find 100 panzanella recipes online (my favourite is here), so we thought we’d have a play around and develop a variation on the theme.
This is a delicious, light and zesty adaptation which leans more towards Greek influences than Italian, and which uses up stale sourdough perfectly.
Enjoy served alongside lemony grilled lamb cutlets and a glass of chilled red wine for an easy summer BBQ!
Ingredients:
4 slices stale sourdough (we used our traditional white but wholemeal would work too)
4 roma tomatoes, very ripe
1/2 cucumber
Small deli tub of mixed marinated olives
Handful of fresh parsley (save a few leaves for garnish)
1 tbspn red wine vinegar
100g Feta cheese
Method:
Tear up the stale sourdough (or dice) into small chunks. Cut the tomatoes and cucumber up roughly, put into a bowl with the olives and all the oil they’re marinated in, plus the parsley and red wine vinegar. Add the bread chunks.
Toss the salad roughly with your hands, scrunching the bread in with everything else to ensure it soaks up the flavour. It isn’t a pretty salad, so don’t worry if it looks a bit messy!
Crumble the feta cheese over the top, and the reserved parsley leaves.
PS Those of you with sharp eyes may notice there’s no feta on my salad. All I can say is, never turn your back while working with children (who love cheese a lot)…
