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Traditional Cretan Dakos

It is tomato season in Ontario and there is just no better way to enjoy these juicy plump tomatoes than to use them to make tasty recipes where the raw tomato is the star of the show. Most people know of your classic Greek salad with chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions, olives and feta but perhaps people may not have heard of Dakos or Ntakos, the iconic meze from Crete. Dakos is a barley rusks and tomato salad. Barley rusks are just extremely crispy pieces of bread made from barley, as its name suggests. If barley rusks or even barley flour are not available, crusty bread whole wheat bread is the perfect replacement. For Dakos, the barley rusks are served whole with tomato and other toppings like, olives, and feta or Mizithra cheese, capers and olives, or they may be broken up into bite sized pieces and served with these same toppings. Trust me when I say you will want to make this salad. There is no better way to showcase fresh Ontario tomatoes than a dish like this. Sweet and juicy vine ripened tomatoes are the best for this dish. Here is a recipe for Dakos, served two ways, as well as a recipe to make your own barley or whole wheat rusks at home in case you are in the baking mood.
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Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Servings: 4
Course: Appetizer, dinner, Snack
Cuisine: Cretan, Greek
Ingredients Method

Ingredients
  

Dakos
  • 3 - 4 cups vine ripened tomato chopped
  • *note doing individual Dakos serving, you may need to leave some tomatoes whole so they can be grated)
  • 1 tablespoon heaped capers
  • 10 Kalamata olives pitted and halved
  • 4 cretan rusks or other crusty bread e.g stale or toasted whole wheat sourdough
  • ½ teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1 - 1 ½ cup feta or Mizithra cheese crumbled
  • 3 - 4 fresh oregano sprigs
  • olive oil as needed
  • sea salt to taste
  • pepper to taste
Pickled Red Onion (Optional)
  • ¼ large red onion very finely sliced
  • 4 tablespoons red wine vinegar
  • ½ - 1 tablespoon honey
  • pinch sea salt
  • water as needed

Method
 

Make pickled red onion:
  1. This is optional but a nice garnish. In a bowl, red wine vinegar, salt, and honey. Mix until combined. Place your red onion into this mixture and top with water until onions are immersed. Set aside and let marinate quickly (about 10 -15 minutes and top your Dakos with it)
Dakos (Family Style)
  1. For family style Dakos, on a serving plate, take barley rusks or slices of crusty bread, break them up using your hands and arrange flat on the dish.
  2. Drizzle your rusks with olive oil.
  3. Chop your tomatoes into medium sized pieces. If using cocktail tomatoes, chopping into quarters is perfect but larger tomatoes require a bit more chopping.
  4. Place tomatoes over your broken up barley husks. Season your tomatoes with a pinch of sea salt.
  5. Top your rusks and tomatoes with capers (chopped or whole), pitted olives, dried oregano and fresh oregano leaves.
  6. Sprinkle with crumbled feta, drizzle with more olive oil and garnish with oregano sprigs or leaves.
  7. Season with pepper if you’d like and serve immediately.
Dakos (Individual Serving)
  1. Do not break up barley rusk or slices of crusty bread. Place a single barley rusk on individual serving plates. E.g. 4 rusks of slices of crusty bread, 4 plates.
  2. Grate 1-3 tomatoes, season with salt to taste and add a small amount of, about 1 teaspoon, honey if desired. This just adds a bit of sweetness but it is optional. Set aside.
  3. Drizzle olive oil over your barley rusks or slices of crusty, dry bread (remember when picking crusty bread you want it to be the texture of a crouton so you need to bake at a low temp like to get it crunchier).
  4. Place spoonfuls of grated tomato on top of your barley rusks. You want all the juices, this is what softens the barley rusks or crusty bread.
  5. Drizzle more olive oil over top.
  6. In a bowl, mix together 3-4 chopped tomatoes, capers (roughly chopped if you like, or left whole), leaves from your fresh oregano sprigs, dried oregano, salt, pepper, and a small drizzle of olive oil.
  7. Place your well seasoned chopped tomatoes over your seasoned grated tomato and barley husk.
  8. Top each plate with crumbled feta cheese, whole or pitted olives, fresh and dried oregano and pepper if desired.