Growing up any nationality I am sure you have you staples that will always remind you of childhood, but this is one of mine, growing up Italian.
Everyone in the family grows celery. It started with my Nonni in the Bronx, who had a garden that you would have had to see to believe. Now my parents grow celery and all the aunts grow it too. For one reason only…this salad.
Ingredients:
A few stalks of leafy celery, the leaves are critical (2 cups worth chopped)
A handful of ripe tomatoes (2 cups worth diced)
4 TBLS of Oil (I used Mazola, but you can use anything light)
Salt to taste
Water
Italian Bread
Make sure to wash the celery very well, since you are going to be using the leaves, sometimes its hard to see how dirty they actually are. Once clean, chop the celery into small rough pieces. Make sure to rough chop the leaves as well.
Dice up the tomatoes as well, into small pieces, it really doesn’t need to be perfect, its going to taste delicious.
Add the diced tomato and chopped celery to a medium bowl, the bowl you plan to serve this in works just fine, one less bowl to wash.
Ok, so the secret tool here, like every Italian mother and grandmother know…your hands. Crush some of the tomatoes in your hands to release some of the juices.
I didn’t take a picture of me doing this, so of course I go to google images and found this gem.
I guarantee you that this salad is not this much fun to make, so I am not sure what Giada is making here…
Ok, now back to reality. Add the oil, salt and a few TBLS of water to the mixture. Give a good stir to mix through. Taste for salt, the liquid should be addicting. Adjust as needed, also want to make sure you have enough juice for bread dunking, so add oil and water as needed.
