Repurposing a Mango Salad As Fried Rice

Recently, we got a bounty of five mangoes from the tree in our building. The tree has been bearing fruit for a few years now. It grazes my window, and I revel in the greenery amidst all the concrete. Now I had to find a way to use up the mangoes.

I came across a recipe for a Myanmarese mango salad for the first time. It struck me as very unusual, combining raw mango, cabbage, roasted gram flour, sesame seeds and a host of other things. It suited me well as I had most of them - and that included a shrivelling, shrinking cabbage. I did not have soy sauce but I decided to give it a try anyway, it was sufficiently new and exotic for me.

However, things started going awry towards the end as the method mentioned one ingredient not previously mentioned and left out details about where to add some others. I added what I could and mixed it all up and dropped the dressing totally. It tasted like the masala mixture you get on the streets in South India, especially Andhra Pradesh.

It was tasty, but super sour. (I had decided to drop the sugar.) Neither The Spouse nor I felt we would enjoy a second overpowering dose so I decided to turn it into a pulihora, some versions of which share many ingredients with the salad. For the Telugu New Year day, we sometimes make a mango pulihora with shredded sour mangoes. Amidst the hurry over the sudden lockdown announcement, I had forgotten that Ugadi was the next day so could not celebrate with food. We got the mangoes well after Ugadi had gone by.

Ingredients

Green mangoes - 1/2 a kilo, peeled and shredded
Cabbage - 1.5 cups
Onion - 1, big, finely sliced
Tomato - 1, medium, sliced
Dry red chilli - 3, broken
Garlic - 4 cloves, minced
Shallots/sambar onions - 8, minced
White sesame seed - 2 tbsp, toasted and ground
Peanuts - 2-3 tbsp, roasted and crushed
Gram flour/besan - 3-4 tbsp, roasted
Salt  - start with 1 tsp of table salt
Pepper - freshly ground
Lime - 1
Chopped coriander - 3 tbsp
Cooked rice - start with 2 cups
Gingelly/sesame Oil - 1 tbsp

Notes

The shallots and garlic were fried for the salad and added to it somewhere along the way as the original recipe was not clear to me. Everything got mixed up and rather soggy ultimately. The taste was good, if somewhat overwhelming.

Method
The next day, I heated the sesame oil and added the salad to it. Saute the salad for a couple of minutes and add the rice to it. Add more rice if it's too sour for your taste. Check seasoning, adjust according to taste and consume.

Salad Days, Green in Judgement, Hot in Chilli*

You're not an original!" screamed the Internet back at Sra.

"Oh, alright, alright," said Sra, sullenly. "How many other crazed foodies do you think would call their dish cucumber noodles? Well, quite a few, it looks like," she muttered, teetering on the edge of a sour soliloquy, pausing to wonder if they had also tempered olive oil with red chillies and garlic and seasoned it with zatar, and all this only after adding some zucchini noodles to the cucumber.

And that, dear audience, is exactly what I did.

Peeled three tired old cucumbers and again peeled their flesh into strips - these are what I - and several other foodies - call noodles. Did the same with one tired old zucchini which hid its fatigue very well. (Tired meant that I had to discard quite a few bits.)

Chopped up an onion and added it to the above.

Heated a splash of extra-virgin olive oil and tempered it with two red chillies and two cloves of garlic

Added about 2 tsp of zatar, a splash of red wine vinegar and some salt

Tossed it all together in a bowl and let it rest an hour or two until dinner.

Then I tasted it and discovered it was one chilli too hot for comfort. And I'm no wimp when it comes to chillies.

But I ate it up anyway because no one else would - there were two other diners - and adding some dal to the salad reduced the heat.

You could do that too. It's also my tried-and-tested substitute for rice in rice-and-dal - I've done it before. You needn't peel the cucumber into strips for that, though, just cut it up regular.

And my favourite use for zatar is to use it on baked potatoes.

*I'm no Cleopatra, so I hope Shakespeare will at least forgive me if not appreciate me for twisting his words this way ...

Cucumber Salad Humour

Fancy Fennel, Simple Salad

This past week, I undertook something that I hadn't ever. I invited a large number of people over for dinner. Eight, to be exact. (And yes, that is a large number for me.) I was very nervous as I haven't cooked for that large a number in all these years. It was a day off from work and I spent about 6-7 hours prepping and cooking and assembling, with a break of about two hours for shopping and lunch.

There is a hypermarket at the far end of the road we live on and getting there is a journey. But the reward for it were some small (read relatively inexpensive) boxes of strawberries, good black grapes and a bulb of fennel (which produces the saunf we Indians are familiar with) that I've never seen here earlier. I took the smallest of those, which cost Rs 40, knowing I would make a salad that I'd eaten I don't remember where earlier.

The fennel stayed in my fridge for three days - naturally, I'd forgotten all about it as I'd not opened the vegetable crisper as I hadn't needed to cook because there were lots of leftovers from The Dinner for Eight People - till I remembered about it yesterday. (In the process, I also noticed a big bunch of greens, which I converted into two stir fries, one with the leaves and one with the stalks.) Then I set about looking for recipes and then for sites which would tell me how to process fennel into paper-thin shavings. I realised rapidly it wouldn't be a simple case of taking the peeler and shaving it - it involved 'removing tough outer portions', 'cutting off the stalks and saving them for use in soups later' and such.

I regret to say my fennel didn't come with any 'ferns' or 'fronds' (just a few tiny, ragged, blackening-at-the-tips leaves) and the inner portions seemed as tough as the outer portions. My bulb of fennel was rapidly attenuating as I attempted to remove the Tough Outer Portions, so I simply stopped discarding the T. O. P. after a minute or so and cut it into thin strips.

'Aromatic' is an understatement, and, I think, rather inaccurate. My fennel smelt of an entity that could straddle the paint and petroleum derivatives categories and yet be pleasant - I can't be more accurate than that myself.

I looked for recipes for simple fennel salad and chose this though I didn't have half the ingredients with me. (I had powdered Parmesan cheese in a tin, which I didn't want to risk using.) So I made it with just fennel, lime juice, olive oil, salt and pepper but felt that it lacked something, so added a sliced onion to the mix. It was just right.

Fennel bulb, cut into strips: 150-200 gm
Onion, small/medium: 1, sliced thin and well separated
Olive oil: 2 tbsp
Lime juice: from 1 big lime
Salt and fresh cracked pepper, to taste

Mix the olive oil, lime juice, salt and pepper and whisk a little with a fork till it begins to emulsify. Pour it over the fennel and onion and mix. It tastes good a couple of hours later.

I read that India produces about 30,000 tonnes of fennel (not sure how recent the link is) but I do wonder, what happens to all those bulbs?

I'm sending this off to Astrid who's hosting Kalyn's Weekend Herb Blogging this week, now managed by Haalo.

Weekend Herb Blogging Vegan Salad Fennel Fennel

Quinoa - A Love Story

It was late evening and Sri, who had just come back from work, was washing the quinoa thoroughly. That involved quite a bit of dexterity, the way She would have it. It had been almost a year since she brought it back with her from her vacation abroad, and life had begun to take form, little black creepy-crawlies making their way among those pale brown grains. She had almost lost it when she saw him squeezing the quinoa well under water. "Sri!", she had screamed, "You're going to squish all the insects, just run water over it several times till they all float up and pour it away, then maybe you can wash it vigorously. Call yourself a most intelligent guy but I have to instruct you in the most common of sense!" she said, her face all twisted in irritation.

Sri opened his mouth to yell back but closed it as a tidal wave of dejection washed over him. Why why why had he said yes to this girl? What had possessed him? He should have read the warning signs. At what was supposed to be a romantic evening on the beach soon after they got engaged, she told him she couldn't and wouldn't cook breakfast and other meals as per convention. Well, it must have been romantic, because all caution and instincts of self-preservation deserted him and he leapt to the occasion and told her, "Why bother about all that, I can cook and I'm not particular about traditional breakfasts."

But she had tried, that one year that she couldn't work because of the shift - mango milkshake, just mango, something or the other ... and he had rejected a series of whatever she offered - cereal, upma, cornflakes ... And then she had begun working and life had been fine as they had had a cook for most part. Then they moved again and decided a cook was a luxury ...

But they had had fun, hadn't they? Even though there were times when she wasn't suitably appreciative ... "All you've done is dunk paneer and peas in a pack of tomato puree and heat it up," she would cry; at other times, he was "the most thoughtful spouse ever, thank God you aren't like my friends' husbands!" They had kneaded flour, experimented with yeast, made naans and sheermals, grilled paneer, fried breaded chicken, laid out five-course meals for friends and family. Where had all that gone?

They had gotten older and busier. More world-weary. And while food wasn't the last thing on their minds, and they had learnt a lot more about it, its preparation at the end of the day was a chore. It was past 9 p.m. Why couldn't they just go out to dinner? When would this quinoa boil, when would the entire salad be put together and when, finally, would they have dinner and would he be able to play Hearts on the computer?

"Sri!"

Her voice interrupted his reverie and he hurriedly filled the bowl of quinoa with some more water to give it another rinse. "You're still at it, Sri? Just finish with it and spread it out in a plate to dry."

"What do you mean? This has to dry before we make the salad?"

"Well, of course!"

"So when will we have dinner?"

"Whenever you want!"

"What about the kinowa?"

"It's keenwah. Keen-wah. Get it? I told you that twice already."

"Alright, keenwah. What about the darn salad?"

"The darn salad is for the darn blog. It's for tomorrow. Finish up and come soon - I've brought fried chicken and chocolate mousse and ice-cream, they're waiting."

Healthy and hurry don't go together. She understands!

It was hard to tell which came first - the rush of joy at the mention of that unabashedly unwholesome menu or the sigh of relief that the salad could be put off! Or was it neither of these but a surge of love, coupled with the reassurance that he had chosen right, after all?

This piece of fiction goes to Bong Mom, who's hosting Of Chalks and Chopsticks, Aqua's idea.



The original recipe came from here.

1 cup quinoa
2 cups water
2 cups frozen shelled peas, thawed
1 tablespoon freshly grated lemon zest
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons chopped coriander
1/2 teaspoon salt
Red peppers or de-seeded red chillies - I used pickled red chillies but washed them clean before I used them.
1/4 cup toasted sunflower seeds

Toast quinoa in a pan over medium heat, stirring often, until it begins to pop, about five minutes. Transfer to a fine sieve and rinse thoroughly.

Boil the water in a medium saucepan over high heat. Add the quinoa and return to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to a simmer and cook for eight minutes. Remove the lid and, without disturbing the quinoa, add the peas. Cook another 7-8 minutes, until the peas and quinoa are tender. Drain any remaining water.

Whisk lemon zest and juice, oil, coriander and salt in a large bowl. Add the chillies and the quinoa mixture. Toss to combine. Top with toasted sunflower seeds.

As it contains a substantial amount of legumes, I'm also sending it to My Legume Love Affair 23

MLLA Of Chalks and Chopsticks Humour Story Humour Quinoa Vegan

Salad Days

It's often the very small things in life that can make you feel wildly happy.

(Ah yes, the armchair philosopher has begun spouting Wisdom for the Week - but do humour her - just as you would a rather green-behind-the ears DJ on a music channel proffering love and life advice - it's just some home-spun experience extrapolated to a world, nay, universal view ...)

Well, yes, how would you account for the fact that one of life's happiest moments, perhaps the only one, was when she discovered how to get dry yeast to work?

And the second happiest moment, just a few days ago, when she discovered her favourite brand of frozen (cleaned and deveined) prawns had made a comeback?

And the third happiest moment was when she discovered that she had refrigerated the avocado at the perfectly ripe moment so much so that when she cut through it, there was a paragon of green, glossy, buttery perfection in her hand?

Out went plans for an avocado, papaya, tomato salsa, in came what we shall now call a 'shrimp' and avocado salad. By the way, the difference between a shrimp and a prawn is this. (But I didn't go through it because it seemed boring, and who knows, my prawns might have been shrimp anyway!)

(It's a synthesis of various recipes I found on the Net, try as I might, I cannot zero in on the two I synthesised.)



But enough of meandering, here's how this impressing-friends salad is made!

Shrimp 500 gm
Oil: 1 tbsp
Red chilli powder: 1 tsp
Garlic, minced: 2 tsp
Salt, a pinch

Avocado: One, diced (sprinkle lime juice all over immediately to prevent browning)
Hard-boiled eggs: 3, cubed
Tomatoes, de-seeded and julienned: 1 cup
Carrots, julienned: 1 cup

Dressing
Olive oil: 3 tbsp
Lime juice: 4 tbsp
Sesame oil: 1 tbsp
Salt
Crushed black pepper

Stir fry the shrimp/prawns in the oil with the ingredients for just 2 minutes.

Now add the tomatoes, eggs and carrots.

Whisk the dressing ingredients well and pour over the salad.

Mix well, but with a light hand so that the eggs don't disintegrate.

Chill.



This salad goes off to Marija of Palachinka, who's hosting Kalyn's WHB this week.

In other matters, the second edition of Chalks and Chopsticks, Aquadaze's idea, has rolled around and the Bong Mom is waiting for you to spin your yarns and send them to her. Go on, do that and delight all of us, yours truly is a co-host.

Weekend Herb Blogging Salad Prawns/Shrimp Humour

Of Lucky Escapes, Quinoa & The Past Week

The week started off with what was meant to be a spouse-pleasing biriyani, but the dustbin, not his stomach, became its receptacle instead.

Don't try to imitate the dum action by weighing down a light and unsteady lid with a heavy stone mortar and pestle. They will overturn the lid and fall inside the biriyani if you're lucky, otherwise spill the biriyani all over the stove and under the microwave, in which process you would burn your arms too.

I was lucky.

After fishing out the hot mortar and pestle from the hot biriyani and washing your arms to make sure the experience doesn't leave any scars, a most familiar fire and brimstone smell (well, not really, it smelt like well done kababs) tells you your biriyani is going going gone to hell anyway - that you should have trusted your gut instincts and added some water to the meat underneath the rice in the heavy-bottomed pan despite the instructions in the fancy cookbook.

Cook in its own steam? Hah!

It's a few days later and you remember having soaked some dried cranberries overnight a few days ago, forgotten that you drained and stored them in the fridge. You have an hour before work starts, why don't you set about making the salad as planned with quinoa, that wonder grain with all the eight essential amino acids, among other goodnesses?

Step 1: Retrieve the cranberries. Reach in, pluck that dish out and realise it was the milk after it spills all over the fridge and under. There's some on your feet too - rub it in for a free beauty treatment! Clean up the mess (the bonus is that the dust bunnies under the fridge come out).

Step 2: Set to making the salad on the dining table with the TV news on in front of you. Topple the basket of TV remotes over, fix all the loosened parts and leave it in the same precarious position.

Mince, chop, boil, grind.

Chill.

The salad, that is.

Meanwhile, YOU can go have the third bath of the hot, humid summer's day that it is, sit under the fan a while to try and calm and cool the tortured spirit and flesh and give thanks that bigger misfortune hasn't befallen you.

Get through the day thinking of this new, never-before-in-your-experience salad.



Here's the original recipe, or is it from here? (And below is how I made do.)

1 cup quinoa
2 cups water
4 tbsp honey
1 tsp finely chopped garlic
1 1/2 teaspoons minced green chillies
1/2 cup dry cranberries, soaked overnite, drained
Juice from 2 big limes
1 tbsp finely chopped fresh mint
1 tbsp finely chopped fresh coriander
1/4 cup finely chopped red onion
Salt to taste

Rinse quinoa several times. Boil water, add quinoa and simmer 20 minutes or until all liquid is absorbed. Let rest, cool a bit. Add some salt, fluff.

Meanwhile, combine half the honey, garlic and green chillies in a bowl.

Whiz the cranberries and remaining honey and lime juice in a mixer.

When quinoa has cooked and cooled a little, stir in both mixtures.

Add the mint, cilantro and red onion to the quinoa and mix thoroughly, but not with a heavy hand.

Chill.

This goes off to The Cabinet of Prof Kitty who's hosting Kalyn's WHB this week, now administered by Haalo.

Weekend Herb Blogging Quinoa Salad Vegetarian

The Nutcracker And The New York Times Natural Foods Cookbook

A short while ago, I wrote a post saying I didn't know if my family/community had many cooking traditions, and what they were. I'm sure they did, just that I never bothered with them that much. But we did have one tradition, no, two, that I remember right now. One was to pour ice cubes into a napkin, gather the ends and clutch it so that none of the ice-cubes fell out, and bang it heartily against the wall. And we would have crushed ice. (Though I no longer remember what it was used for.)

The other, more mine than family's, was this.


The Nutcracker

Don't do that, the doors will get damaged, my grandmother would say, but who would listen to her? (I'm sure one of the adults showed me this trick.) The walnuts, whenever they were available, would be cracked like that in the space between the door and the hinge jamb, and consumed. I wouldn't crack that many walnuts, and never did the doors get spoilt.

A few months ago, my mother sent me a bag of whole walnuts. (Aside: I'm suddenly anxious to buy more whole walnuts even though I have half a bag of them with me still, are they still sold whole?) Anyway, I was more exasperated than happy and I suspected she was getting rid of them (there will be rather indignant recriminations if she reads this, I'm afraid) but managed to sporadically use up about half of them in sundry cakes - I recently went through a baking phase.

They are beginning to smell rather odd from being cooped up inside a plastic packet inside a plastic container, and I despair of using them up before they smell more desperate.

But asides and digressions aside, here's what I rediscovered in my cookbook shelf:

This is The New York Times Natural Foods Cookbook, by Jean Hewitt. How I could have not tried something from this since I bought it a few years ago beats my comprehension (or have I?). It's in excellent condition and the inside cover has 'Senke' written on it. Of the many links that I came across about this book, I read just a few, and all of them related how the writer had stumbled on to this cookbook at a sale. Here is some more information about the book.

Bereft of a mystery or a sitcom to immerse myself in, I took this book to bed, and came across this Mediterranean Cucumber Salad, which I made today. It was attractive to me because I had all the ingredients, though the cucumber was regular size, not small, and the raisins were not monukka. I let it chill from morning to evening and ate two helpings of it for dinner. The Spouse has promised to have it for breakfast.

I think the raisins did it. Made all the difference, I mean. This recipe was contributed by "Jane Margulies, New York, NY"

Here's what you need:



Cucumber, peeled, seeded, diced: 1-1.5 cups
Curds/Yoghurt: 1 cup
Raisins: 3 tbsp
Onion, chopped: A small fistful
Walnuts, chopped: 1/4 cup
(Sea) Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Mint leaves, chopped: 1 tbsp



Place the cucumbers in a bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well. Chill and serve very cold.


And yes, I've started another tradition here - using my expensive, branded, and very impressionable (read 'not stain-proof'), ab stretch exercise mat as background for my pictures. What crazy traditions did you follow?

This post is off to Haalo who is hosting Weekend Herb Blogging this week, the event started by Kalyn.

Weekend Herb Blogging Curds/Yoghurt salad vegetarian humour

Bean There, Done That!

If it's epiphany one day, it's serendipity another. Want something so bad and the universe will conspire to give it to you? I don't know if such lofty ideals/statements can be applied to the smaller delights of life, and it's not as if I wanted this so bad that the entire universe had to get conspiring to give it to me but if it did, I'm happy.

The bane of living in big cities is that services and conveniences you get in small towns are hard to come by. (As are certain vegetables, foods and treats of other kinds, but that's a different story) Whenever I need some clothes altered, I can't give it to any tailor close by but have to go to this poky little shop in a poky little road that features a smelly, open drain to meet the "alterations specialist". It's a right task, hauling myself and my bundle of "alterations clothes" collected over the weeks, to his kiosk, but that day, it was doubly worth it because I noticed these broad beans, my absolute favourites and rarely to be found where I live, on a vegetable cart close by. I immediately bought half a kilo.


They were all the more a serendipitous find because just a few days ago, I had been looking for some ideas for Feta cheese, of which I possessed a small carton, and had come across recipes for a traditional Greek salad of broad beans and Feta.


This recipe is a synthesis of several recipes that I have in my cookbooks and on the Net. It's been a month since I've made it so treat the quantities with a pinch of salt. And if yours is the salty variety of Feta, like mine, don't bother to add any extra.

What you need:

Broad beans: 500 gm, shelled
Feta cheese: 200 gm (a cup), crumbled
Tomatoes: 4 medium-sized ones, quartered
Garlic cloves: 4-5, crushed
Mint: A fistful, chopped
Green olives (I didn't have any black): A few
Olive oil: 4 tbsp (I used EVOO as that's what I had)
Freshly ground black pepper
More mint for garnish

Shell the beans and boil them in a pan of water until just tender. Drain and set aside.

Heat the oil in a frying pan and add the tomatoes and garlic. Cook, stirring, until the tomatoes begin to change colour.

Add the feta cheese and toss for a minute. Remove from fire. Mix with the cooked beans, mint, olives and salt and pepper. Garnish with more mint.

Off this goes to Susan, to the eighth helping of My Legume Love Affair.

My Legume Love Affair Feta Salad Broad beans

Salad Days, And Reminding Again

Periodically, depending on the stocks in my pantry, I often take a salad to work so that we have something healthy and guilt-free to munch on during the day. It's usually made of beans and peas of one or more kinds so that it's a somewhat substantial snack. Of course, there are jokes about how it's boring to bring/eat healthy food, but every few minutes, someone or the other returns for a couple of spoonfuls and only rarely does any remain by the time I leave. I won't be lying if I say that nowadays I take it more for them than for myself.

I seem to have hit upon a no-fail recipe in my garlic, coriander and lime juice dressing but today, I had only one lime and not much energy to reach into the deeper recesses of the refrigerator to extract the coriander box or deal a deathblow to a clove of garlic, so I reached for the mint which was at the edge of the shelf.

I told myself that I would post it here only if I liked it, and not just to fill the week-long silence. I'm glad it didn't disappoint me.


Here's how I made this salad:

Rajma/kidney beans: 2 handfuls, soaked overnight, cooked
Carrot: Grated, a fistful

Dressing
Lime juice: of 1 lime
Mint: 10-12 leaves, chopped
Dry ginger powder/sonth/sonthi/chukku: A pinch
Salt: To taste
Green chilli: 1, chopped, seeded, if you like
Extra-virgin olive oil: 1/2 tsp

In a container, place the ingredients under Dressing, mix and let it sit for a while, say for 15-30 minutes. Then mix it well with the rajma and the grated carrot. Chill it till you need it.

Needless to say, this salad goes to the in-house event My Legume Love Affair - Fourth Helping.

Now for the reminder. There's just 10 days to go for the My Legume Love Affair - Fourth Helping deadline. Please hurry up with those entries as well as with the e-mails giving me the details and the photos. The details are in the sidebar.

My Legume Love Affair - Fourth Helping Salad Vegetarian Rajma/Kidney beans MLLA-4

Rooted To The Spot

My personal training classes at the gym have become just that - personal. More than I like. Every detail of what I've ingested is investigated and met with raised eyebrows, sober and solemn "Hmms..." and other trying-not-to-be despairing expressions. So when my passionate, desperate, young and charming trainer pointed to the weighing machine and pleaded with me to eat just fruit for dinner till I reached a certain weight, not brooking my arguments that it wouldn't be a real reflection of what I weighed, I reluctantly agreed. Neither she nor I are happy with my more than decent loss of inches, we want to see the kilos tumble away, and I don't want to be confronted with questions of how many grammes I've lost every day.

Now, dinner's my nemesis - contrary to all diet advice which says don't eat much at dinnertime, that's exactly what I do - I can easily forgo breakfast and lunch and not miss them but at the end of the day, I look forward to an unhurried dinner, a good book, a good DVD. An unhurried dinner also means a variety of good food and watermelon and apple alone do not a good dinner make.

As a via media between my trainer's desires and mine, and also to rescue some vegetables that have been lying around for a while, I concocted this salad.


My weight is still rooted to the spot, and my trainer's still pleading with me, so I make no claims to how healthy or filling or low-calorie it is (but it can't be, it's full of roots, and yeah, yeah, I've done the obligatory Googling for nutritional info).

It's an "As You Like It" salad, just add or subtract whatever you don't like.

Beetroots: 2, boiled, peeled, sliced
Turnips: 2, boiled, peeled, sliced
Capsicum/bell peppers: 2, diced

Dressing

Limes: Juice of 3
Garlic: 2 cloves, minced
Green chilli: 1, deseeded, minced
Oil: 1 tsp
Sugar: 1/2 tsp
Salt, to taste

Garnish

Sesame seed: 1 tbsp, toasted

In a bowl, place the lime juice, garlic, green chilli, sugar and salt. Mix and let it sit for a while, about 30 minutes.

In a larger bowl, place the vegetables and add the oil and dressing. Mix well but gently.

You can choose to strain the dressing too.

Garnish with toasted sesame seed. By mistake, I used cold-pressed gingelly (sesame) oil and the flavour was rather overpowering - I decided it needed some crunch to take my mind off the flavour and added the sesame seed, it was a good idea!

Salad Beetroot Turnip Capsicum/Bell Pepper Sesame Lime + garlic dressing Weight loss Humour Gym

A Liteness of Being

When Coffee announced MBP’s theme is Going Lite, several thoughts came to my mind: At last, I can finally buy the stuff but justify the expense as going towards a good cause and make that flourless cake with an expensive pound of ground almonds and orange and pass it off as a somewhat low-carb version; I can finally make use of the nice, thick, glass cake dish I just bought at a 30 per cent off sale; I can use the slowly rotting plums in my refrigerator to make a crumble using up some more of the sturdy oats in my larder …

Then I noticed some channa/chickpeas that were somewhere in the inner recesses of the shelf and I decided to take another shot at salad – I am usually disappointed with my own attempts as the dressing never seems to come together. My friend was coming to lunch so that was motivation enough. It gave me a chance to use up some vegetables from my cornucopious fridge as well. And that was the perfect excuse to boil up some wholewheat pasta and tomato-basil sauce and bake some garlicky potatoes and have ourselves a feast. And another new acquisition from the sale, a pudding bowl, could double up as a salad bowl! I do realize the meal went way past the Going Lite theme but that was lunch, not a theme party, so I suppose we can skip the guilt this time. I’m presenting just the genuinely lite dish here. MBP, here I come!

This salad is inspired by Kalyn’s Kitchen. I didn’t have/use many of the vegetables she mentioned, nor the lime juice, nor the carrot, so I used some dill-chilli vinegar, red pepper and zucchini instead. I wasn’t able to print Kalyn’s recipe, so I just worked from memory and this is what I came up with:

Dry channa/chickpeas/garbanzo: 2 cups, soaked overnight and cooked
Zucchini – Half of a big one, diced small
Red pepper – 2, cut into small pieces

Dressing:
Vinegar – 3 tbsp
Olive oil – 3 tbsp
Garlic – 5 cloves, minced as fine as possible
Cumin/jeera powder – 1 tsp
Chilli powder – ½ tsp
Salt, to taste

Steep garlic and the other spices in a mixture of vinegar and oil for some time.

Put all the vegetables in a salad bowl, add dressing, mix, let chill in the refrigerator.

It wasn’t too bad for me, my friend loved it and praise be to God, it didn’t last beyond a day in my refrigerator because I had the brains to take it to work, where my colleagues too liked it. I’m hoping you will, too!

Monthly Blog Patrolling Channa/Chickpeas/Garbanzo Vegetarian Salad