This bread salad is the favourite every-day Lebanese salad. The spice sumac gives it a distinctive sharp flavor. The old traditional way was to moisten the toasted bread with water and a little lemon juice before soaking it further with the dressing, which made it deliciously soft and soggy. Nowadays, the toasted bread is broken into pieces and added to the salad at the end while it is crisp. You can buy purslane and small cucumbers (they have a better flavor than our large ones) in Middle Eastern stores.
11/2  pita breads
1 Cos lettuce, cut into 1/2 inch ribbons
about 100g purslane leaves or lamb’s lettuce
4 firm ripe tomatoes, cut into medium pieces
4 small cucumbers, peeled and cut into thick slices
1 green pepper, seeded and cut into small slices
11/2 mild onions or 8 scallions, chopped
large handful chopped flat-leaf parsley
4−5 sprigs of mint, shredded
1/3 – 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
salt and black pepper
1 tablespoon ground sumac

Cut around the pita and open them out. Toast them under the grill or in the oven until they are crisp; turn them over once.
Break them into small pieces in your hands. Put all the vegetables and herbs in a large bowl.
For the dressing, mix the olive oil with the lemon juice, salt, pepper and sumac.

Just before serving, sprinkle the toasted pita o ver the salad then toss the salad well with the dressing. Serves 6–8