Chickpea salad: let's prepare it like a poké

Chickpea salad: let's prepare it like a poké
  • Preparation time 20 Min.
  • Cooking time 20 Min.
  • Difficulty Easy
  • Portions 1
  • Calories per Serving 300
  • Type of plate Contour

Chickpea salad is a simple, tasty and nutrient-rich dish perfect for those looking for a healthy, vegetarian and quick-to-prepare option. Usually made with boiled chickpeas, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, herbs and dressed with extra-virgin olive oil and lemon juice, it is ideal for summer lunches, office schiscettes or fresh side dishes.

It can be enriched with tuna, avocado or feta for a more complete, protein-packed version. Find out how to make a fresh and balanced chickpea salad, perfect for any season, in this poké version.

The term poke means "cut up," and denotes one of the signature dishes of Hawaiian cuisine, now known worldwide, consisting of a bowl of diced raw fish, seasoned and accompanied by other fresh ingredients.

Those who think this is a passing fad are sorely mistaken, because poké has been around since as far back as the 1800s, and originated as a typical meal of Hawaiian fishermen, prepared with freshly caught raw fish (usually tuna or octopus) served with seaweed and vegetables. About 10 years ago in the United States, the traditional poké morphed into the now well-known poke bowl, a large bowl where, to a base of fish or chicken is added rice, quinoa or other grains, raw vegetables and sometimes fruit.

Ingredients

  • 100gr canned chickpeas
  • 100gr green beans in a jar
  • 100gr Lentils in a jar
  • 100gr of cherry tomatoes
  • 1 Carrot
  • 1 Sweet potato
  • q.b. Cashews
  • q.b. Fresh mint
  • q.b. Salt
  • q.b. Pepper
  • q.b. Turmeric
  • q.b. Curry
  • q.b. Extra virgin olive oil

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Instructions

1. Drain the chickpeas well, rinse them under water and remove the outer skin by running them between thumb and forefinger. Place them in a bowl and season with extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper and turmeric. Mix well with a spoon.

2. Rinse the sweet potato under running water Peel it, place it in a pot of cold water with a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil and let it cook for about 10 minutes. Let it cool and cut it into slices.

3. Drain canned green beans, cut them in half, and season with extra virgin olive oil, along with raw carrot cut into matchsticks.

4. Drain the lentils and mix them with evo oil and a pinch of curry.

5. Cut cherry tomatoes in half and season with oil and salt.

6. Plate all the ingredients in a large bowl (positioning them so that each occupies one part of the bowl). Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and garnish with fresh mint leaves and a few cashews.


Not just chickpeas for our poké version salad

The chickpeas are good, suitable for any season, and good quality ones can be found in jars as well. The same goes for green beans and lentils (in the middle of summer, not everyone has the time and inclination to set about boiling vegetables).

We recommend that you buy boiled vegetables au naturel in glass jars, which will allow you to store them in the refrigerator if they are leftover.

As for tomatoes, ideal are the cherry variety pachino, small, very sweet and very fragrant: they seem to be made especially for our summer chickpea salad. To recognize the best ones, just rub lightly between thumb and forefinger the part of the petiole where it sticks to the cherry tomato: if you give off an intense, aromatic smell, they are the right ones!

What chickpea salad would be without a good extra virgin olive oil? 

Extra virgin olive oil is the condiment par excellence, one of the few that adapts to any type of dish, and it is at its best precisely when it is added acrudo to hot or cold dishes.

For the chickpea salad, we chose Extra Virgin Olive Oil Il Casolare Biological, with a balanced and slightly fruity taste, able to enhance the dish while respecting the balance of the ingredients.

Organic Il Casolare is also very good on bruschetta: we recommend toasting some bread for 5 minutes in a frying pan or on a grill and seasoning it simply with a drizzle of oil and a pinch of salt; it will be perfect as an accompaniment to chickpea salad.

Recommended pairings

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