A version of a favorite. The base: boiled potatoes, olive oil, lemon and fresh garlic. Taste will depend on quality of olive oil and of course the potatoes (for the dish in the photograph I used organic potatoes from the farmers market). You always want something to balance the potatoes on texture, ideally a little crunchy. I often use sauted beans, sometimes cucumbers (I’ve used Japanese & persian cucumbers). In this version I used cucumbers, but also capitalized on the abundance of delicious heirloom (and other) tomatoes we got from the farmers market all through Sept and Oct. I then added an experimental twist to the dish, that came out very well: I used thinly sliced red onions fried in olive oil as a hot garnish. I fried the onions over low heat, with patience, letting them slowly caramelize. After the rest of the salad mixture has had some time to cool in the fridge with the garlic, lemon, olive oil, salt and fresh pepper, right before serving, I garnished the salad with the hot fried onions. If you want crisper onions, take them out of the oil and drain on a paper towel before adding to the salad.

I’ve called the final garnish “onion tarka” in the title because the onion garnish, chopped differently, and with the addition of various spices, is the hot garnish used on many Indian dishes, and called “Tarka”.