Recipe of the Week: Fattoush 

My dorm cabinets currently have thirty-four boxes of pasta. Thirty-four. Boxes. Of unopened. Pasta. And yet there’s no pasta sauce. But that’s another story.

My roommates have spent the last few weeks eating pasta, pizza, and alas, more pasta. Don’t get me wrong, I love my pasta, but two weeks of never-ending carbs can make one wish it was never invented.

The other day, I tried bringing sarma, an Armenian dish of meat and rice mixture wrapped in grape leaves, to my dorm. One of my roommates took one look at it, and preceded to ask me, “Why do you have your dog’s poop in a container?” You can only imagine the trauma I had to endure while they watched me in disgust as I ate the delicious pile of crap.

Needless to say, the blending of cultures in our dorm has taken a rather slow turn.

My mission: create Middle Eastern salad otherwise known as: fattoush. It’s not so scary looking, and it’s a good introduction to Middle Eastern food. The recipe itself isn’t so difficult-once you have the right ingredients.

Luckily, my grandma specifically made sure I had all the ingredients required to make this dish, just in case I randomly felt like making it (she knows me too well).

 

Will serve 4 (comfortably), Or 1 if the others refuse to touch it.

Ingredients:

-Two heads of romaine lettuce

-Two tomatoes

-Two green/orange/red peppers, or one of each

-Two cucumbers

-A handful of parsley

-A handful of cilantro

-2 scallions (These are onions, use with care.)

-One Lemon, squeezed

-1/3 cup of Extra Virgin Olive Oil (No exact measurement, just an approximation)

-A handful of Sumac

-A sprinkle of Cumin

-A sprinkle of Salt

-A sprinkle of Ground pepper

-A sprinkle of Paprika (optional)

-2 Pita Breads

 

I woke up at around six in the morning, way before my alarm clock rang because of my air conditioner. I had made the mistake of sticking my head too far off the bed, and directly on top of the vent. Due to the energy save mode that the Summit air conditioners have, the AC was off for the entire night, as I sweated in uncomfortable silence. Come six-o-clock, just as I innocently put my head above the vent, the AC decided to blast into my face. I woke up from my lazy summer sleep to the cruel and bitter cold.

Now, you may be wondering why I would even bother mentioning this at all. The cold air reminded me of winter. Winter reminded me of the freezer. The freezer reminded me of pita bread. Pita bread reminded me of fattoush. And so, I woke up with the intense craving for my favorite Middle Eastern salad. Thus, my journey began.

I went about my day, going back and forth between my classes, the dorm, and the library, dreaming of the salad I was hoping to make for dinner-the highlight of my day.

My day ended around 6:00pm, and I most literally ran to my kitchen to make sure all of the ingredients were still there. Just as I was beginning to feel good about myself for remembering to bring the random assortment of spices, I remembered: pita. I had seen my roommates sneakily pull the bread out to make sandwiches, and hoped it had survived their Nutella cravings.

I opened the freezer door and came face to face with a lone container of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. Alas, I was too late. Pita was gone.

So determined was I to make this salad, I decided to substitute the wonderful crunchy bread with…mac and cheese. There’s no escaping this pasta.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My roommates were surprisingly delighted with the interesting salad, once they ate a bowl of their favorite macaroni and cheese. I suppose I will never rid this dorm of the high carbs that plague my cabinets, but if it’s helping my roommates experiment with different flavors, I suppose I will learn to accept its presence.

Maybe next time I’ll introduce tabouleh with a side of spaghetti.