Tuscany’s solution for stale bread, panzanella, is just the start of salad solutions for stale bread. Throughout the Middle East — where fresh, thin flatbreads dry out even faster than foccacia — there’s a greener, crunchier cousin of panzanella: fattoush.
Fattoush is little more than the ubiquitous Arab salad that accompanies nearly every meal in the Middle East, a varying mix of cucumbers, radish, lettuce, tomatoes, scallions and fresh herbs. Yet two ingredients set fattoush apart — sumac and pita bread.
In this recipe from our book “Milk Street Tuesday Nights,” which limits recipes to 45 minutes or less, we make our pita extra crunchy so the salad ends up with different textures. We brush the rounds with oil and bake them until nicely browned. Sumac is like a dry citrus, with earthy, tart notes that brighten the salad without making the pita soggy.
Our addition of quick-pickled grapes is
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