A Tomato Salad With a Greek Personality

My summer tomato salads are sweet, minty and decidedly Greek in nature. Greek because I can never resist throwing in feta, and because I’m pretty wild about mint, too.

This one, a colorful mix of heirloom tomatoes, is bulked up with red or pink beans. But it’s not a bean salad with tomatoes; it’s a tomato salad with beans. I added celery to the mix for its crunchy texture, which is nice against both the juicy tomatoes and the soft beans, and because I love its herbal, crisp and refreshing flavor.

I wanted something in the salad that would catch the copious amount of juice released by the tomatoes pretty much as soon as you salt them. So I toasted slices of country bread, set them on top of a bed of arugula and spooned the salad on top. It worked beautifully.

So did the barley rusks, twice-baked Greek bread made with barley flour, which I always buy when I go to my local Greek market. Rusks are a staple ingredient in Greece, and until my bag runs out I’ll be piling my juicy salads on top of them. They soften beautifully under the tomatoes and have a wonderful, wholesome flavor and texture.

But take your pick; toasted bread will do just as well.

Recipe: Tomato Salad With Red Beans