Dakos
Dakos looks like bruschetta but works in reverse. There the bread must stay crisp; here the barley rusk is meant to soften under tomato juice — enough to bite through, not enough to collapse. It is a keeping bread, hard as stone, and tomato juice is the tastiest way to soften it. The whole craft is how much moisture goes in, and fifteen minutes of waiting.
Your own work in that: 0 min.
- Grating the tomatoes 10 min
- Moistening the rusks 5 min
- Softening 15 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneGrate the tomatoes rather than chopping
Halve the tomatoes and grate them on the cut side, holding the skin. The skin stays in your hand and the pulp and juice fall into the bowl. Chopped tomato releases juice in spots — grated, it releases it evenly across the rusk.
Ingredients: 600 g tomatoes · 200 g feta · 2 tsp oregano · 80 g olives · 2 tbsp capers · 4 tbsp olive oil · ½ tsp salt
Skin left in your hand, pulp and juice in the bowl.Drain the pulp and salt it
Salt the grated pulp and leave it 10 minutes in a sieve, catching the juice in a bowl below. That juice is what moistens the rusk. Separating them gives you control: you decide how much liquid goes into the bread instead of leaving it to chance.
Ingredients: 600 g tomatoes · 200 g feta · 2 tsp oregano · 80 g olives · 2 tbsp capers · 4 tbsp olive oil · ½ tsp salt
Sprinkle the rusks with water and juice
Set the rusks on plates and sprinkle each with a tablespoon of water and some tomato juice, spreading it with your fingers. Do not dip them — a dipped rusk disintegrates within seconds and turns to porridge.
Ingredients: 4 pcs barley rusks · 4 tbsp water · 4 tbsp olive oil
Sprinkle, never dip.Oil them before the tomato goes on
Pour a spoonful of oil over each rusk. The order matters: a dry rusk readily drinks up oil, so its flavour goes right through, and the tomatoes then add the rest of the moisture.
Ingredients: 4 pcs barley rusks · 4 tbsp water · 4 tbsp olive oil
Spoon on the tomato and crumble the cheese
Mound the drained pulp on top, crumble the cheese over it by hand, not with a knife, and add the olives and capers. Uneven pieces give a different balance of salt in every bite — diced feta distributes far too regularly.
Ingredients: 600 g tomatoes · 200 g feta · 2 tsp oregano · 80 g olives · 2 tbsp capers · 4 tbsp olive oil · ½ tsp salt
Cheese crumbled by hand, in uneven pieces.Leave it a quarter of an hour before eating
Scatter the oregano, pour over the remaining oil and leave for 15 minutes. That is the right window for dakos: the rusk should still resist the bite without breaking teeth. After half an hour it is usually too soft.
Ingredients: 600 g tomatoes · 200 g feta · 2 tsp oregano · 80 g olives · 2 tbsp capers · 4 tbsp olive oil · ½ tsp salt
Before you start
Instead of paximadi
Cretan barley rusks are very hard and twice baked. Substitute: a thick slice of wholemeal bread dried right through in the oven (about 40 minutes at 150°C), or hard savoury biscotti. An ordinary crouton dissolves within a minute.
Mizithra instead of feta
Cretan mizithra is milder, creamier and less salty than feta. If you use feta, salt the tomatoes more lightly — with two salty ingredients it is easy to overdo it.
Only in tomato season
This is a simple dish in which the tomato plays the lead. Winter tomatoes have neither the juice to soften the rusk nor the flavour to carry the plate. Out of season, make something else.
