Vegan Dakos

This delicious vegan Dakos is the perfect salad for on those sunny days. Dakos is a dish that originates from Crete, the largest island in Greece. With this dish you will completely get into the Mediterranean atmosphere! Dakos is eaten in Crete as a side dish or as a meal for lunch. It consists of barley rusks, also called paximadia, topped with a salad of tomato, vegan feta, oregano, olives, capers and onions. The moisture from the salad is then absorbed by the dried bread, which makes this dish so irresistibly tasty!

Serves: 4 (as a side dish) 2 (for lunch)
Prep time: 10 minutes
Total time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

1 (150 g) whole-wheat baguette
4 (500 g) tomatoes
1 (10 g) shallot
10 kalamata olives (pitted)
1 tbsp capers
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
¼ tsp salt, to taste
¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp dried oregano
45 g vegan feta, crumbled
15 basil leaves

Method

1. Slice the whole wheat baguette and then quarter. Place on a baking tray with parchment paper and bake for 10 minutes in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius. (The bread should not become brown, it has to dry and harden)
2. Chop the tomatoes (with pulp) and slice the shallot in half rings. Slice the kalamata olives in half. Put everything in a bowl together with the capers, olive oil, white wine vinegar, salt, freshly ground black pepper and dried oregano. Crumble the vegan feta and roughly tear the basil leaves. Add this to the bowl as well. Stir everything to combined.
3. Place the bread pieces in a bowl and spoon the tomato salad on top. The idea is that it will absorb all the juices. Garnish with some olive oil and extra dried oregano.

Tip: In Greece they use dried barley bread, which you can already buy in a package. We have not yet been able to find this in the supermarket. That’s why we just use whole wheat baguette to dry in the oven. If you have some old brown bread laying around, this will also work perfectly!