Shanklish Salad

Before You Start

Rinse the onion. It is the difference between a salad and an argument.

Crumble by hand, never with a knife.

Taste before salting — the cheese is already salty.

How to Make Shanklish Salad

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1. Put the diced onion in a sieve and rinse under cold running water for 30 seconds. Shake dry.

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2. Crumble the shanklish into a bowl with your fingers, into irregular pieces the size of a hazelnut. Do not chop it.

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3. Add the tomato, rinsed onion and mint.

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4. Dress with the oil, lemon and pepper and turn it over gently — twice, no more, or the cheese smears through the tomato.

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5. Taste before adding any salt. Shanklish usually makes it unnecessary.

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6. Spread on a flat plate, finish with the last of the oil and serve with bread.

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Related guide: Ingredient substitutions.

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What's Going On Here

The onion has to be rinsed. Shanklish is already assertive — fermented, salty, thyme-covered — and a raw onion straight from the board fights it rather than balancing it. Thirty seconds under cold water pulls out the harsh sulphur compounds while leaving the sweetness, and the result reads as a salad instead of two strong things in a bowl. Crumble the cheese by hand, too: a knife smears it and the point is loose, uneven pieces that keep some of their bite.

Leftovers, Reheating and Keeping

Best within the hour; the tomato waters down as it sits. Refrigerated for a day at most.

Ingredient Swaps

• Fresh herbs work in place of the dried thyme at roughly three times the quantity — a teaspoon of dried is about a tablespoon of fresh, chopped.

Good With

• Warm khubz arabi
• Green olives
• Sweet mint tea

What's in a Serving

No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (most of the energy comes from foods with no recorded source). Why some recipes have none.

Gluten-free when served without the flatbread.

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