By Leslie Brenner
Gorgeous and festive, this salad — adapted from Claudia Roden’s Mediterranean — is ideal for this time of year, when pomegranates are still looking great in the markets. With green olives, walnuts and scallions and a lot of parsley, it’s tossed with a tangy dressing based on pomegranate molasses and finished with pomegranate seeds.
It’s a specialty of Gaziantep, Turkey.
If you’re like me and you keep packages of walnuts in your freezer, toast them for four or five minutes in a 350-degree F / 175-degree C oven to bring them back to life before roughly chopping them.
It’s a perfect starter to precede the Palestinian dish Chicken Musakhan, saucy Lamb Meatballs, Chickpeas and Swiss Chard with Yogurt or Moussaka. You can also serve it as part of a vegan mezze, or bring it to a potluck or Friendsgiving.