Recipe: Reem Assil’s California Fattoush Salad

Brimming with tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, fresh herbs and spicy radishes, meet your new favorite salad from the James Beard Award Outstanding Chef finalist.

With tomato season drawing closer, you’ll soon be making this California Fattoush Salad on repeat. The winter version, brimming with citrus and sunchokes, is currently on the menu at Reem’s California in San Francisco.

The classic version, featured in chef-owner Reem Assil’s new cookbook, “Arabiyya: Recipes from the Life of an Arab in Diaspora” (Ten Speed Press, $35), has all the elements of a perfect salad: juicy cherry tomatoes, cool Persian cucumbers, red onions, spicy radishes, fresh herbs and crunchy arugula, Little Gem or romaine lettuce. The star ingredient, of course, is pita bread, cut into pieces and fried to a crouton-like crisp.

In the summer, Assil adds raw or grilled corn and pomegranate seeds, which highlight the pomegranate molasses-spiked dressing.

California Fattoush Salad

Serves 4 to 6

DRESSING:

1 garlic clove, crushed

2 tablespoons lemon juice (about 1 lemon)

1 tablespoon pomegranate molasses

½ teaspoon kosher salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

SALAD:

3 cups store-bought pita chips or 2-inch pieces of pita bread, fried until crisp

2 cups halved cherry tomatoes

1 Persian cucumber, halved lengthwise and cut into 1/8-inch crescents (about 1 cup)

4 radishes, sliced into thin rounds

¼ red onion, halved stem to root and thinly sliced into crescents (about 1 cup)

2 cups Little Gem lettuce or chopped romaine

2 cups loosely packed arugula

Leaves from 2 sprigs of parsley

Leaves from 2 sprigs of mint

1 tablespoon sumac

DIRECTIONS

To make the dressing: Combine all of the ingredients in a blender or a bowl and mix or whisk to incorporate. Make sure to whisk well again before using, since the oil will separate.

To assemble the salad: In a medium bowl, toss half the chips with the tomatoes, cucumber, radishes, onion, Little Gem and ¼ cup of the dressing.

Lay the arugula on a serving platter and cover evenly with the dressed veggies and chips. Tuck the remaining half of the pita chips into the salad to fill in any gaps. Drizzle the remaining dressing over the salad. Sprinkle the parsley and mint over the dish and top with the sumac.

— From Reem Assil’s “Arabiyya: Recipes from the Life of an Arab in Diaspora” (Ten Speed Press, $35)