A crunchy mixed vegetable salad given a twist by the addition of bread. Feel free to improvise with whatever is in your garden or kitchen. The key to this salad is not the choice of vegetables but slicing them as thinly as possible. Use a mandoline if you have one.

Ingredients

　　About 1/4 pound crusty bread (stale is fine), torn into pieces

　　1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

　　1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

　　Salt and black pepper to taste

　　2 cucumbers, peeled and sliced

　　1 fennel bulb, trimmed and sliced

　　2 tomatoes, preferably plum, cored and sliced

　　2 celery stalks, sliced

　　1 red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and sliced

　　6 radishes, trimmed and sliced

　　1/2 cup pitted small black olives

　　8 cornichons, chopped

　　1 cup chopped fresh basil leaves, optional

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Step 2

　　The Best Recipes in the World by Mark Bittman. © 2005 by Mark Bittman. Published by Broadway Books. All Rights Reserved.MARK BITTMAN is the author of the blockbuster The Best Recipes in the World (Broadway, 2005) and the classic bestseller How to Cook Everything, which has sold more than one million copies. He is also the coauthor, with Jean-Georges Vongerichten, of Simple to Spectacular and Jean-Georges: Cooking at Home with a Four-Star Chef. Mr. Bittman is a prolific writer, makes frequent appearances on radio and television, and is the host of The Best Recipes in the World, a 13-part series on public television. He lives in New York and Connecticut.