Italian Bread Salad by Nici Wickes

Ingredients

250g Italian bread (ciabatta or similar), very stale
1 large red onion, diced finely
3 sticks celery, roughly dices
½ telegraph cucumber, peeled, halved lengthwise, de-seeded and sliced
Handful of fresh basil leaves, roughly torn
400g ripe tomatoes, chopped roughly
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
100ml olive oil, best quality you can afford
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar  

Directions

Chop the bread into large cubes and soak in cold water for about 30 minutes. While this is soaking prepare your vegetables. Once the bread has soaked and softened squeeze out the water and put in a bowl or on a platter.Add the onion, celery, cucumber, basil leaves and tomatoes and mix gently with your hands.

If you are intending to serve the salad within the hour add the salt and pepper and the oil and vinegar at this stage, toss well and then refrigerate until required.

If you are not serving it within an hour or so, refrigerate without adding the oil and vinegar and instead add these just before serving. Adding these two ingredients too far ahead can turn the salad to mush and we don’t want that!  Serve garnished with a few basil leaves.

Serves 6