Tomato, Red Onion & Sumac Salad
Ripe tomatoes cut thick, onion rinsed of its bite, and enough sumac to turn the oil pink.
Why it works
Rinsing the sliced onion under cold water for ten seconds and wringing it dry strips out the raw sulphur burn but leaves the crunch, so you can use far more of it than usual. Salting the tomatoes first and dressing them last turns the juice they give up into part of the dressing, not a watery layer under the salad.
Method
- Put the tomato wedges in a wide shallow bowl, salt them well and leave them while you do everything else. They start to weep within a minute.
- Tip the onion into a sieve, run cold water over it for 10 seconds, then wring it out in a clean tea towel. Scatter it over the tomatoes.
- Add the sumac, mint, vinegar, oil and most of the parsley, and turn it once with two spoons — twice at most, or the wedges break down.
- Taste for salt, which ripe tomatoes swallow more of than you expect. Finish with the rest of the parsley, a pinch more sumac and black pepper. Built in the six minutes a grill takes to heat, it only improves as it stands.
For the toddler
Take a few tomato wedges out at step 1, before you salt the rest. Cut them into small pieces, and quarter any cherry tomatoes lengthways rather than leaving them whole. Leave the onion, the vinegar and the sumac out of theirs, all of which read as sharp at this age, and dress with a little olive oil instead. If you add olives for the adults, keep them off their plate.
How the toddler notes workChef’s notes
Cucumber in thick half-moons for a third of the tomato, or black olives if the tomatoes are dull.
Skip the rinse and use spring onions instead — no thin slicing, no squeezing, three minutes.
Lamb kofte off the grill, fried halloumi, or a slow white bean stew that needs something sharp and cold beside it.
Keeps a day chilled but softens. Tip the lot, juices included, over toasted flatbread tomorrow.