Baba’s Greek Salad

A Family Greek Salad with Crisp Lettuce, Feta & Baba’s Festival Blend

Some recipes are remembered because of how they tasted. Others are remembered because of who made them.

Baba’s Greek salad was both.

Nobody made a Greek salad quite like Baba. He took pride in every part of it. The lettuce had to be cold and crisp. The cucumbers were always peeled and seeded. The tomatoes needed to be ripe but firm. The onion was sliced thinly, the feta was served in substantial pieces, and the dressing was always made fresh.

There were no shortcuts.

Some of my favorite memories are Sunday afternoons after church. We’d come home hungry, and before long the kitchen would come alive. There might be chicken roasting, potatoes in the oven, rice on the stove, lamb, or something else Baba had decided we all needed to eat.

But no matter what else was being served, the salad was always the crown jewel of the table.

Not Quite a Traditional Horiatiki — and That’s the Point

If you travel through Greece, the classic horiatiki, or village salad, usually doesn't contain lettuce. You'll typically find tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions, olives, feta, olive oil and herbs.

Baba’s salad was different.

Growing up and raising his family in the American South, crisp iceberg lettuce was readily available, and Baba loved what it added: freshness, crunch and volume. So lettuce became part of our family's Greek salad.

That distinction is important to me. This isn't our attempt to redefine the traditional Greek village salad.

This is Baba’s salad.

It's the one we grew up eating, the one that appeared on our family table, and the one I hope you'll make for yours.

— Jimmy Economos

Ingredients

For the Salad

• 1 head crisp iceberg lettuce, washed, thoroughly dried, chilled and chopped

• 3–4 ripe tomatoes, seeded and cut into wedges

• 1 cucumber, peeled, seeded and sliced into half moons

• ½ red onion, cored and thinly sliced

• 1 green bell pepper, sliced into thin strips

• 1 cup Kalamata olives, pitted

• 6 oz Greek feta cheese, cut into slabs or substantial pieces

Baba’s Greek Dressing

• ½ cup good-quality extra-virgin olive oil

• ¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar

• 1–2 tbsp Baba’s Festival Blend

The Festival Blend takes the place of measuring several individual Greek herbs and seasonings and gives the dressing the familiar flavor Baba wanted in his salad.

How to Make Baba’s Greek Salad

Step 1 — Make the Dressing First

Combine the olive oil, freshly squeezed lemon juice, red wine vinegar and Baba’s Festival Blend in a small bowl or measuring cup.

Whisk vigorously until combined.

Then do something important:

Leave it alone for 5–10 minutes.

That short rest gives the dried herbs and seasonings time to hydrate and allows their flavors to bloom in the oil, lemon and vinegar.

Give it another good whisk immediately before dressing the salad.

Baba’s Rule:

Never bottled dressing.

Fresh olive oil, fresh lemon and good vinegar make an enormous difference.

Step 2 — Start With Cold, Crisp Lettuce

Wash the iceberg lettuce thoroughly and, more importantly, dry it thoroughly.

Water left on the lettuce dilutes the dressing and keeps the olive oil from properly coating the leaves.

Chill the lettuce before assembling the salad and chop it into comfortable bite-sized pieces.

Baba wanted the salad cold and crisp when it reached the table.

Step 3 — Prepare the Cucumber

Peel the cucumber and slice it lengthwise.

Use a small spoon to scrape out the watery center and seeds.

Place the cucumber halves cut-side down and slice them into half moons.

Removing the seeds might seem like an unnecessary extra step. It isn't. It gives the cucumber a firmer texture and prevents excess water from collecting in the bottom of the salad.

Step 4 — Prepare the Tomatoes

Use tomatoes that are ripe, flavorful and still firm enough to hold their shape.

Cut them into wedges.

If the tomatoes contain a large amount of watery seeds and pulp, gently scoop some of it away with a spoon.

We want the flavor of a ripe tomato without turning the bottom of our salad bowl into tomato water.

Step 5 — Slice the Onion and Pepper

Core the red onion and slice it very thinly.

The onion should contribute flavor to each forkful without overpowering everything else.

Slice the green bell pepper into long, thin strips.

That combination of pepper, onion, cucumber and tomato gives the salad much of the texture and aroma we associate with a Greek table.

Step 6 — Don't Forget the Olives

Use good-quality Kalamata olives.

Make absolutely certain they're pitted before adding them to the salad—especially when serving children or guests.

Don't chop them.

The olive should remain recognizable as one of the major ingredients in the salad.

Step 7 — Assemble the Salad

Place the cold lettuce into a large salad bowl.

Add the tomatoes, cucumber, red onion, green pepper and Kalamata olives.

Give the dressing another vigorous whisk and pour it over the vegetables.

Toss gently.

You're trying to coat everything with dressing without crushing the tomatoes or bruising the lettuce.

Step 8 — Feta Goes on Last

Now add the feta.

Don't pulverize it into tiny crumbles.

Cut or break the feta into slabs or substantial pieces and place them over the salad. People can break off smaller bites as they eat.

That gives you something completely different from a salad covered in dry feta crumbs: creamy, salty bites of real feta against the crisp vegetables and bright dressing.

Building the Perfect Forkful

This was part of Baba's philosophy about making a good salad.

Everything should be cut so that you can get a little bit of everything onto your fork:

crisp lettuce + cucumber + ripe tomato + onion + olive + feta + dressing.

Nothing should be so large that you need a knife to eat the salad, and nothing should be chopped so finely that you lose the character of the individual ingredients.

That's the balance.

Baba’s Tips

• Keep it cold. Cold lettuce and vegetables make a noticeably better salad.

• Dry the lettuce completely. Dressing sticks to dry lettuce much better than wet lettuce.

• Use fresh lemon juice. Don't substitute bottled lemon juice.

• Give the dressing 5–10 minutes to rest after adding Baba’s Festival Blend.

• Seed the cucumber. It improves texture and keeps excess water out of the salad.

• Use ripe but firm tomatoes.

• Slice the onion thinly.

• Don't finely crumble the feta. Leave substantial pieces for people to break apart as they eat.

• Dress immediately before serving. Once dressed, this salad is meant to be eaten.

From Baba’s Table to Yours

Food has an incredible ability to keep people and memories with us.

For me, this salad will always be Sunday afternoon. It's coming home from church hungry. It's hearing people talking in the kitchen. It's plates filling the table. And it's watching Baba take something as simple as a salad seriously because he believed that if you were going to feed people you loved, you should make it the best way you knew how.

That's really what Baba's Bakaliko is about.

We're trying to take the flavors and little techniques that existed around our family table and make them easier for another generation of families to enjoy.

So make the salad. Put it in the middle of the table. Pass it around.

And hopefully, years from now, somebody at your table remembers it too.

“The secret isn't the dressing. The secret is taking your time and using the best ingredients you can find.”
— Baba

From Baba's table to yours. Kali orexi!