Peach and Tomato Salad

Submitted by twissis

"From the *Tomato Cookbook* of the Australian Womens Weekly cookbook series comes this salad full of flavor, texture & color. While the recipe uses fresh peaches & that would clearly be best when in season, IMO it still works well w/canned peaches because it is just plain good either way. It can also be expanded by adding shrimp or chicken. You just really cannot go wrong w/this recipe. *Enjoy* !"

 

• Ready In: 30mins
• Ingredients: 14
• Yields: 4 Salads
• Serves: 4

ingredients

• FOR DRESSING

• 1⁄4 cup lemon juice
• 1⁄3 cup olive oil
• 3 teaspoons white wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 garlic clove (crushed)
• 3 teaspoons sugar

• FOR SALAD

• 2 pita pockets
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 cucumber (large size)
• 1 red onion (medium size)
• 4 fresh peaches (medium size)
• 6 roma tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons of fresh mint (chopped)
• 2 tablespoons fresh coriander (chopped)

directions

1. FOR DRESSING: Combine dressing ingredients in a jar, shake well & set aside.
2. FOR SALAD: Preheat oven to 400°F.
3. Split pita pockets & lightly brush both sides of ea piece w/olive oil. Place on an oven tray or baking sheet & toast till crisp (about 15 min). Set aside to cool.
4. Cut unpeeled cucumber in half lengthways, scoop out seeds, slice thinly & set aside in a lrg bowl. Cut onion in half & ea half into 6 wedges. Break pieces apart & add to sliced cucumber.
5. Cut a shallow cross in base of ea peach & drop peaches into lrg pan of boiling water. Drain & rinse under cold water. Cut peaches in half, twist to remove stones & peel.
6. Cut peaches & tomatoes into wedges & add to cucumber-onion mixture w/the chopped fresh mint & coriander.
7. Break crisped pita pocket bread into pieces just b4 serving. Add to other ingredients, shake dressing again & drizzle over salad per taste preferences. Serve immediately.
8. NOTES: The dressing & pita pockets can be prepared a dy ahead. If the peaches you use halve easily to remove the stones & peel, you may opt to skip blanching the peaches.
9. DRESSING IF USING CANNED PEACHES: Drain peaches well & reserve 2 tbsp of peach nectar. Use 2 tbsp lemon juice + 2 tbsp peach nectar + vinegar, cumin & garlic as stated for dressing. Bottom line is skip the added sugar. :-).

Reviews

[morgainegeiser]

This was an interesting salad. I loved all the veggies, however next time I make the salad I will skip the pita bread - as we found it got soggy and we landed up going around it. But the combination of veggies and fruit was very yummy, nice dressing.

 

[Kumquat the Cats fr]

This was different, and quite good, thanks:D I used peaches, tomatoes, cucumber and a red onion fresh from the farmer's market. I did pare down the fruit and vegetables by half and still used 2 pita pockets. I also used only 1 tablespoon olive oil for the dressing and maybe for those reasons my boyfriend did not like this quite as much as I did (but then I'm the one reviewing it). When the pitas came out of the oven after 15 minutes they were very crispy but the dressing (I used most of it) made the finished product softer with crispy parts. Thanks for the recipe! Next time I would make this with the recommended fruit/vegetable to pita ratio. Thanks twissis:D