Every day I grab three or four tongsfull of assorted greens from the bin at the local salad bar. The bin is labeled “Greek Salad”. Next to it is the “Caesar Salad” bin and a few others. The idea is that the salad is already tossed with dressing so you don’t have to assemble it from the many bins containing all the different salad fixin’s.
The bin is full (mostly) of assorted greens & tomato wedges. Iceberg, romane and maybe some arugula & other mysterious leafy things for good measure. Sometimes there are onions, sometimes not. Sometimes olives, sometimes not. Feta cheese is often crumbled on top. I don’t know what the dressing is; seems to be sort of a creamy vinaigrette.
But today I hear that a REAL greek salad shouldn’t have any greens at all. Can it be true? Most online recipes seems to agree, although a few do list iceberg lettuce as optional ingredients.
Anybody up for a fact-finding mission to Athens? Failing that, anybody actually had a salad in Greece? Were there greens in it? What are dopers’ ideas of what should be in a Greek salad?
I ate at an authentic Greek restaraunt in Montreal last summer. I LOVE Greek food, especially Greek salad.
When our meals, which were to include Greek salad, arrived, there was a pile of tomatoes, onions, and feta (possibly cucumber too, I can’t recall) on the side of the plate. They were covered in some sort of an oil and vinegar dressing, and mighty tasty!
However…I do prefer my “North American-ized” Greek salad which includes lettuce. I think it’s the dressing I like so much…but I also love feta cheese.
I’ve known Greek salads with lettuce. But I’ve no idea how authentic it is. But I LOVE LOVE LOVE the combo of cucumbers, tomatoes, red onion and feta in some sort of nice savory dressing.
I lived on horiatiki when I spent a summer in Greece, so I consider myself an expert. Horiatiki (I know I probably munged the spelling, but I only know how to spell it using Greek letters!) means literally “village salad” and were ubiquitous on Greek restaurant menus.
The base salad is:
lovely fresh tomatoes either sliced or cut into wedges
cucumbers, skin left on (unwaxed, of course)
Greek olives, typically Kalamatas
a slab of Feta on top. A BIG slab, if you’re lucky
dried oregano sprinkled over the entire salad
Greek olive oil and red wine vinegar as a dressing
Some places also included one or more of the following:
fresh oregano instead of dried
red onions
sliced green bell peppers
What they never contained:
Lettuce. I never saw a Greek salad with lettuce in it. Some restaurants offered lettuce salads, but they were called something different.
crumbled feta. The feta was always in a big ol’ slab on top.
creamy dressing
A Greek friend told me in the winter the salads contained cabbage instead of tomatoes, as tomatoes were not in season. Actually, his exact words were that they contained garbage instead of tomatoes, but we figured out what he meant. I was never there in the winter, so I can’t comment on the veracity of his statement.
I spent a couple weeks visiting Greece, and concur with Athena.
The Greek dish I absolutely fell in love with is their yogurt. Truly delicious. Red peppers stuffed with feta were yummy, as well.
The most fun thing was that the restaurant owners would often invite you into the kitchen so you could take a look and pick out what looked like the best dinner.
I always have them with the americanized way, however I love to add mushrooms. Some places already add them, or if I make them at home I add a ton. Has anyone else tried it with mushrooms? IMHO it’s the best!!
I once went to a restuarant and ordered a Greek salad and the waitress wanted to know what kind of dressing I wanted on that. I reiterated that I wanted a Greek salad. She started copping attitude about it. After our dinner arrived cold, before the salad even showed up, (the waitress insisted that the salad now came after the main course) we got the manager involved. He tried to soothe us and tell us that it was very busy and that is why we had to wait so long. We then tell him that she asked several times what kind of dressing we wanted on the Greek salad. He said, “It’s a Greek salad!” and turned to the waitress and started speaking angrily and quickly and every time she said something his eyes rolled. We left at that point, still hungry.
I had no idea what kind of dressing goes on a Greek salad, just that i like it, and you don’t have to specify, it’s built in.
I was never there in the winter, so I can’t comment on the veracity of his statement.