tunisian salad (salade meshouiwa)

Tunisian salad (without the egg and tuna!)

I thought I would start August's recipes with this gorgeous refreshing salad, perfect for this week's heatwave, perfect for the summer; it is a sort of North African equivalent of a Salad Nicoise and makes a great accompaniment to grilled or barbecued meat and fish. 

Tunisian cooking is a very rich and quite complex cuisine, with culinary influences both ancient and relatively modern, from Rome, Carthage and the Ottoman Empire, to the Middle East and North Africa. It really is a delightful combination of Mediterranean and Arab cuisine with a strong Italian and French influences, a sort of big hello from the other side of the Mediterranean.