Yiayia
By Anastasia Miari
Yiayia Margarita's horiatiki (village salad) from Santorini
Not Too Tricky
serves 4
About the recipe
Arriving at Margarita’s is like stepping into a Santorini frozen in time before tourists descended and made this one of the most visited islands in all of Greece. Based in the south of the island, a good 40-minute drive from the town of Oia (packed with selfie sticks and tourists trying to get the ultimate sunset shots of the iconic sloping caldera), Margarita and her husband live alone in a house on a hill. It overlooks a red beach that hints at the island’s explosive volcanic history. The bleating of goats greets me. Margarita has a ton of animals that roam the periphery of her home. Horses with chestnut manes that gleam in the sun. Chickens and roosters. Dogs that wind between our legs as we prepare lunch at an outdoor table, the inky Aegean Sea our backdrop. She chops our village salad directly into the bowl she serves it in, not caring about making it look delicious but doing so regardless. There’s little need for pomp and food styling; the produce here speaks for itself. ‘The local tomatoes here are the best in all of Greece,’ she tells me, explaining that the volcanic soil makes for hardy produce. ‘We barely need to water our tomatoes, it’s the ground that feeds them.’ What makes this Greek salad extra special is the addition of capers and caper leaves, an extra touch you’ll find across the Cycladic islands. The pièce de résistance is a huge chunk of feta cheese – doorstep wedge if possible – teetering atop the salad.
Recipe From
Ingredients
2 large vine tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 small cucumber, peeled and roughly chopped
1 small red onion, finely sliced
1 green (bell) pepper, finely sliced into rings
1 tablespoon caper leaves
1 tablespoon capers
handful of kalamata olives
200g (7oz) feta
1 teaspoon dried oregano
olive oil, for dressing the salad
Method
- Combine the tomatoes, cucumber and red onion in a bowl.
- Top with the green pepper, caper leaves and capers, kalamata olives, then the wedge of feta.
- Sprinkle with oregano and add a generous glug of olive oil.
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