Cafe Liz

Vegetable salad with buttermilk and dates

This is kind of like an Israeli salad bathed in buttermilk. I was inspired by all the creamy salads we had in Hungary, except there they use sour cream, and I prefer buttermilk. And fresh vegetables. The effect is creamy but light.

I should note that Eitan gave me a better kitchen scale for my birthday. Hence, all the quantities are listed VERY PRECISELY. No, I don’t expect anyone to be weighing their garlic to make sure they have 5 grams and not 4 or 6, but this gives you an idea what size vegetables I used. The real issue is with the cucumbers — as I’ve noted in the past, the baseball bats that pass for cucumbers in the United States and some other places are not what we grow here. An Israeli cucumber is about the size of a hot dog.

Coincidentally, the New York Times just ran an article about buttermilk. Turns out that commercial buttermilk is no longer the left-overs from producing butter, but a thin yogurt.

For two large servings or four small servings (I made half this quantity and that was lunch):

1 red pepper (about 250 grams)
4 small cucumber (about 250 grams)
1 medium-sized onion (100 grams)
3-4 fresh dates (60-80 grams, with pits)
2-3 small garlic cloves (about 5 grams)
2 cups buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon vinegar
salt

Cube the pepper, and slice the cucumber, onion and dates into thin slices (remove the pits from the dates). Crush the garlic, and mix everything in a bowl with the buttermilk. Let sit for a few minutes so the flavors can mix, and then eat.

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