Rocket Dakos Salad with Feta and Apricots

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This Rocket Dakos Salad with Apricots and feta is my twist to the Cretan Dakos Salad.

Some purists who don’t like their traditional recipes changed may cringe at this but I’m sorry, I have already posted the authentic Dakos recipe and I like to experiment in the kitchen : )

This salad has all the ingredients of the original recipe but I have gone one step further by giving it my take.  

I wanted to use some of the ingredients which were gifted to us by AB Vassilopoulos.

One of them was the 3 year ripened Vinegar from Naoussa.

In order to balance its acidity as well as the peppery taste of rocket, I made a vinaigrette in which instead of using the usual stuff we put in vinaigrettes such as honey, molasses etc., I decided to use the apricot syrup I made recently.  

Since I also had fresh apricots I decided that they would also add an additional sweetness to the salad.  

I also had some leftover roasted walnuts which I used which also added additional taste and crunchiness.

From the products given to us I used four of these in the salad.

In the collage from left to bottom are the rusks, the vinegar, dried oregano and fresh rocket.

Note:  

Cretan barley rusks are very hard and need to become softer.  

Just put them under running tap water for just a second.  

Don’t wet them too much as they will absorb the juices from the tomato and vinaigrette.  

Add the rusks just before serving the salad as they should not become soggy but they should have some crunchiness.  

You can enjoy it as a salad but also as a light meal on its own.  

Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

You will find the recipe at the end of the post.

Update:  16 July 2012

No cooking today.  

The temperature is 41 degrees C and we had some leftovers from yesterday so I made a Dakos salad with Pineapple.  

I love fruit in salads and I had a leftover slice of pineapple from the recipe I made the previous day.  

For God’s sake don’t open a can of pineapple just to use one slice.  

You can use any other fresh or canned fruit to balance the peppery taste of rocket as well as the acidity of the vinegar, olives and capers.

Dakos Salad with Pineapple

Serves:  2

Ingredients:

• 2 small kritharokouloura
• 1 ripe medium tomato, cubed
• 1 cucumber, cut into small pieces
• 1 small red onion, sliced
• A handful of rocket, coarsely chopped
• 1 tbsp capers
• 4 Kalamata Olives, pitted and chopped
• 1 slice canned pineapple, cut into smaller pieces
• 50 grams feta
• 50 grams anthotyro (or ricotta)

Vinaigrette:

• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp red wine vinegar
• Salt, pepper, oregano to taste
• 2 tbsp pineapple juice

Directions:

1. To prepare the vinaigrette, mix all the ingredients and taste to make sure that the flavours suite your taste. Keep on the side.
2. Quickly drizzle a little water to wet the rusks and place them in a large serving plate and break them up into smaller pieces.  Add the tomato on top and continue with the remaining ingredients.
3. Before serving, add the vinaigrette, mix and serve immediately.

Other relevant recipes:

Dakos:  Cretan rusk salad

Dakos:  Savoury Greek Cheesecake

Kopiaste and Kali Orexi!

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