Cretan tomato salad with carob rusks and myzithra

Chef Michalis Papadakis's version of the Cretan dakos salad, served at the Biolea Astrikas Estate restaurant.

The base is a dakos: a hard carob rusk softened with tomato. Here the rusk is broken into pieces and soaked in a raw sauce of grated tomato, olive oil and herbs, so every piece drinks it up evenly. On top go chunks of ripe tomato, Kalamata olives, pickled caper berries, red onion, a spoonful of soft myzithra and purslane. Three ripe tomatoes and 60 ml of olive oil – the salad is only as good as those two.

Ingredients

• 3 ripe tomatoes
• 10 cherry tomatoes
• 50 g Cretan carob rusks
• 1 tablespoon soft goat's-milk myzithra (substitute: fresh goat's curd or ricotta)
• a handful of purslane (or rocket)
• 8 Kalamata olives
• 3–4 pickled caper berries
• ½ red onion, thinly sliced
• fresh basil and mint
• 60 ml (¼ cup) Biolea extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
• sea salt, black pepper

Method

1. Raw tomato sauce: grate one of the ripe tomatoes on a box grater, flesh side down, and discard the skin. Stir in 20 ml of olive oil, ⅓ teaspoon salt, pepper to taste and finely chopped basil and mint.
2. Break the carob rusks into pieces and spread them over the bottom of a plate. Pour the tomato sauce over them.
3. Cut the remaining tomatoes into large chunks, halve the cherry tomatoes, salt them and pile them over the rusks.
4. Add the red wine vinegar and the onion, then the olives and caper berries.
5. Finish with a tablespoon of myzithra, the purslane and torn basil leaves. Pour the rest of the olive oil over the salad.

Let it stand five minutes before eating so the rusks soften without turning soggy.

Recipe: Michalis Papadakis, Biolea Astrikas Estate restaurant. Photos: Biolea. Published with the producer's permission.