Have you ever heard of the traditional Cretan ntakos? It’s a salad dish from Crete, Greece, which is basically soaked dried bread or barley rusk (we call it “paximadi”) used as a base and on top of it Cretans add chopped tomatoes, crumbled feta or mizithra, dried oregano and usually olives and peppers. Other than “feta”, it’s a plant-based “meze”, full of fiber and antioxidants, utterly nutritious.
But since it’s served with feta, it’s not vegan, so we thought we can exclude it and enjoy it as a plant-based meal. But then we thought, why not make it even healthier and tastier? So we made this version at home and we lost our minds! It is still filled with lycopene tomato and monounsaturated fat from olives, but it’s also high in protein from hummus, which adds extra fiber for the gut microbiome and we also added flavonoid-rich capers for a salty flavor.
Wanna make it with us?
You’ll need
1 cup of hummus
1 large tomato or a cup of cherry tomatoes
2-3 olives
1 tsp oregano
1 tbsp capers
Method
Place your hummus as a base (if you want to make your own hummus, soak chickpeas overnight, cook them the next day -you’ll need about 1,5 cup- and then add in your food processor the juice of a fresh lemon along with about 1/3 to ¼ cup of tahini. Add 2 tbsp of olive oil, 1 garlic clove, some cumin and salt to taste and mix. Then add your chickpeas in small doses and blend again. Add some water to fix the consistency with the food processor on and sprinkle some paprika on top in the end).
Cut your tomato in dice and place it on top of hummus, add your olives, capers and sprinkle some oregano and salt if you want to.
Enjoy!
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