Another Greek salad

When we think of Greek salads here in the US, it’s mostly horiatiki (a version of which is my current favorite lunch)–chopped tomato, cucumber, maybe peppers, some onion, feta and olives. Lahano salata, a shredded cabbage salad with lemon and olives, is less familiar and served, according to cookbook author Rena Salaman in The Greek Cook: Simple Seasonal Food, (Aquamarine/Anness Publishing, NYC ©2001), as a winter side dish–because you always have cabbage available, and lemons are a winter crop in the Mediterranean (and southern California). All you need to add are garlic, parsley, olives and olive oil and you’ve got it. Actually, that really sounds like a perfect summer thing to me.

I picked up a green cabbage today at my local greengrocer’s because it was there, it was cheap, I already had a red cabbage at home for other stuff, and besides, you can’t just hang around your local greengrocer’s picking up seven or eight pounds of fabulously ripe Fresno tomatoes all on their lonesome every couple of days. People will suspect you of becoming a tomatoholic. You need to branch out. And besides, I’d already made a tomato-cucumber-pepper salad pretty much every day for the past two weeks for lunch (as noted above). Not that I’m bored with it, but it gives me permission to do something else for dinner.

This Greek slivered cabbage salad is something I’d had in the back of my mind for half a year or so since paging through Salaman’s cookbook and its gorgeous food photos. But since it’s summertime, limiting the herbs to parsley seems like a missed opportunity when there are so many fresh herbs going wild in my fridge.

Dill, basil, mint, scallions–my current favorite mix for the lunch salad would probably also be good with shredded green cabbage. So I did a variation using those and foisted it on my unsuspecting nearest and dearest, who were both in need of something lighter than usual for supper. It went pretty well and we all agreed it would be a good filler for the salad part of a felafel pita.

I mixed this salad up about an hour before serving and stuck it in the fridge. I realized belatedly that the abundant lemon juice in the dressing would probably start wilting the cabbage, and it did slightly. It would have retained more crunch if I’d mixed it right as we were about to eat, but we still liked it and it wasn’t actually limp, just a little softened. I didn’t think the leftovers would hold up more than a day in the fridge but they did okay and didn’t wilt further overnight–perhaps because I poured off the excess liquid before storing the salad in a snaplock container.

One thing I like about cabbages is that they go a long way. You can take a quarter, wrap and refrigerate the rest and it should stay good for a couple of weeks. You might have to shave off any dried-out cut surfaces the next time (certainly for red cabbage, which also discolors a little at the dried surfaces) but the rest should stay pretty fresh.

Lahano Salata (Greek Green Cabbage Salad, Summer-style)

(Adapted from Rena Salaman’s The Greek Cook: Simple Seasonal Food; ingredient amounts are “use your best judgment”)–for 3-4 people as a side dish or pita filling as a bed for other stuff like felafel or kebabs. If you use a whole head of cabbage as in Salaman’s original recipe, increase everything by about 4-fold or to taste.)

• 1/4 head of a washed green cabbage (the two outer leaves peeled and discarded, the rest rinsed under the tap)
• small handful of herbs–a sprig or two each of dill, basil, and mint; parsley is okay too–finely chopped
• 2 scallions, finely chopped
• 3-4 pitted Greek-style olives (kalamata, Alfonso, Gaeta…), slivered
• juice of a lemon or to taste–half a very large lemon was pretty lemony for just a quarter of a cabbage. For a medium or small lemon, taste and add a 3rd half if you think it needs more
• 1-2 T olive oil

Shred the cabbage finely with a sharp knife and chop into manageable lengths unless you like the shreds long (Rena Salaman’s book had a pretty photo with very long straight shreds, almost like angel hair pasta. She mentions that the cabbages in Greece are different from standard American or northern European ones, so that may be part of it. Ours are curlier when shredded). Add the herbs, scallions and olive slivers, squeeze on the lemon and drizzle on the olive oil, then toss with two forks until everything’s well mixed. You can let the salad soften a little in the fridge for half an hour or so, or you can serve it straight up while it’s still a bit crunchy–it’s good either way.