Choban Salad

⏳ Time

30 minutes

🥕 Ingredients

🍽️ Servings

Description

Prepare a shallow, flat dish for the salad. While we are used to serving salad in a deep round bowl, in Turkey, it is usually presented in a low oval dish, which may even be metallic. The salad is placed in the center of the table and eaten with spoons directly from the dish. The salad should be slightly spicy. You can adjust its spiciness by the amount of fresh hot and dried red pepper used. This salad pairs wonderfully with meat dishes, especially lamb, and also with poultry. It is a must-have accompaniment to all kebabs and grilled dishes.

Ingredients

Tomatoes - 3 pieces
Cucumbers - 3 pieces
Orange Bell Peppers - 2 pieces
Onion - 1 piece
Parsley - 1 bunch
Sumac - 1½ teaspoons
Dried Chili Pepper - 1 teaspoon
Lemon - 1 piece
Olive Oil - to taste
Narshehab sauce - to taste
Salt - to taste

Step by Step guide

Step 1

Finely chop the cucumbers and tomatoes into small cubes. Slice the peppers into thin rings. Be careful with the hot pepper — it may burn your fingers, so avoid licking them or rubbing your eyes.

Step 2

Finely chop the onion. If green onions are not available, regular onions will work just fine. In spring and summer, the sweet, young white onions in Turkey are so good that I prefer them for this salad.

Step 3

Chop the parsley (you should use a whole bunch, not just 1-2 sprigs as we usually do).

Step 4

Place everything in an oval dish, sprinkle with sumac (Sumac is a spice made from ground berries of a reddish-burgundy color with a sour taste. It is used in Turkish cuisine for dressing salads and in the Caucasus for marinating kebabs) and dried red pepper (pul biber is not ground pepper but crushed into tiny flakes), add salt, drizzle with a small amount of olive oil (about 3 tablespoons), and pour in 4-5 tablespoons of narsharab sauce (this is actually concentrated pomegranate juice that has been reduced through evaporation, not thickened with additives).

Step 5

Squeeze the juice from a medium lemon. Using two spoons, mix all the ingredients well. Don’t be alarmed; the small pieces of vegetables will literally float (if they don’t, they should!!) in the resulting dressing, most of which is tomato juice.