Tomato, Cucumber and Olive Salad with Crab Apples - Salata Arabiya bil Tufah Albaladi سلطة عربية بالتفاح البلدي

There are many varieties of salata arabiya in Libya, unified by tomatoes being the main ingredient. This makes the salad very liquid, perfect for eating with barley bread or zumita paste formed into fingers. This version includes small sour apples (which grow wild in libya).

Serves 4 

Ingredients
6 tomatoes 
2 crab apples, diced
1 medium onion or 4 spring onions, chopped
1 cup chopped parsley and / coriander 
1 cup grated or finely diced  Arab cucumbers


Dressing
6 tomato pulps
1/2 cup olive oil
Salt to taste
Lemon Juice to taste
Topping

1/2 a cup of pitted black olives 
extra crab apple slices
Serving Suggestions
Add canned tuna 
Mix in Barley bread cubes
Eat with Zumita paste formed into fingers
Scoop up with flat bread

Finely chop the parsley, dice the apples and onion, and grate the cucumbers.

Remove the pulp from the 6  tomatoes and set aside. Dice the flesh.

 Place the 6 tomato pulps in the mixer, then add salt to taste and lots of lemon juice.

Mix the chopped ingredients together with the tomato dressing,  Drizzle with olive oil before serving and top with olives.

In the Western mountain region they eat Salata Arabiya with Zumita fingers. Zumita is made mainly from barley which is first roasted and then ground to a powder.  Mixed with water and olive oil it makes a nutritious paste.

Adding tuna and bite-size bread pieces makes Salata Arabiya a full meal, often eaten for lunch especially in  hot summer days.